Employee wellbeing is something that must be stressed, and addressed as a key issue in any business or organisation to ensure employees stay happy, healthy and motivated.
There are a number of ways you can incorporate employee wellness and wellbeing into your everyday office routine, and here at UCQ we are striving to make sure it is at the forefront of everything we do.
So, why should you invest in employee wellbeing? Not only will it increase staff satisfaction and morale, but it will also help improve communication within the office. It could also reduce absenteeism, underpinning strong levels of employee engagement; for the more hard-nosed, improvements in these areas will support sustainable improvements in productivity and earnings.
Some may think employee wellbeing means being lenient with working arrangements or building a multi-million pound fitness centre on site, but there are a lot of smaller ideas you can implement that can produce fantastic results.
Maybe try the following;
- Providing a small amount of flexibility to employees who work better at home can help boost productivity. It could also
improve morale and give them a break from the daily commute. Something as little as working from home one day a week could help your business see the results. - Working alongside training providers to improve emotional and social intelligence could also help. It will open up employees’ minds to different problems their co-workers may be suffering in silence.
- Access to healthy food is another easy ‘wellness hack’. It has been said before that ‘food is medicine’, so providing healthy food that’s good for the mind will help with wellbeing, happiness and health.
- Encouraging employees to walk around will help improve wellbeing. Not only does walking help with physical health, it will also allow employees to clear their minds.
- Gratitude is something incredibly easy that can hugely boost employee wellbeing and morale. Thanking an employee for the work they do will help give meaning and significance to their role, leading to them responding positively and boosting their work ethic for future projects.
- Conduct regular one-to-one meetings with staff to help privately discuss any problems, and create solutions before the issue becomes too big to solve. Not only does speaking about problems help, but it will also better cement and develop the relationship between the manager and employee as they will feel more comfortable going to them with future problems.
As well as providing ways to help boost employee wellbeing, it is key to notice the signs of decreased wellbeing.
These could be;
- An employee acting differently to usual
- Clear signs of fatigue
- An increase in the amount of time they are absent from work
- A decrease in performance
- Not taking allocated holiday allowance
Stepping in before the issue becomes serious is plainly as, if not more, important than addressing the problem when it is already there. Research shows that a significant proportion of UK workers are affected by mental health challenges in their day-to-day lives, so promoting a great working environment is a small step to improving wellness in employees across the UK.
Remember, a happy employee is a productive employee, and productive employees are key to businesses over the long term.
If you would like more help or information on helping employees, read our managers guides here; https://da.ucq.ac.uk/category/managers-guides/.
If you would like to learn more about our Chartered Manager Degree Apprenticeship, you can do so here; https://da.ucq.ac.uk/chartered-manager-degree-apprenticeship/.