What Exactly Is Workplace Wellbeing?
If you’ve landed on this article, then you’ve probably heard the term “workplace wellbeing” getting thrown about. It is - after all - on track to being one of this decade’s biggest buzzwords (obviously behind ChatGPT and Elon Musk).
But what does it actually mean? And how does it apply to you and your work life? Don't worry, dear reader, prepare to be enlightened!
But first things first, let's define what workplace wellbeing actually is.
So, What is Workplace Wellbeing?
Essentially, workplace wellbeing refers to the overall health, happiness, and satisfaction of employees in the workplace. This can include physical health, such as ergonomic workspaces and healthy snacks in the break room, as well as mental health, such as stress management resources and open communication channels.
But that really only scratches the surface of what workplace wellbeing actually entails. Scratch a little further and you start to see all four of its main pillars:
Physical
Mental
Financial
Social
Let’s start with the easy ones…
Employee Physical Wellbeing
Now this one’s easy: employee physical wellbeing refers to the state of an employee's overall health and fitness.
It encompasses a range of factors such as:
Nutrition
Exercise
Sleep
Stress levels
Illness prevention
It’s no secret that your employees’ physical wellbeing can have a significant impact on their productivity, engagement, and job satisfaction. But how can you improve the health of your staff without the dystopian thought of mandated exercise? Here’s just a few ideas:
Promote Physical Activity: Encourage physical activity by offering on-site fitness facilities or gym memberships, organising optional fitness events, promoting active commuting options like cycling or walking to work, and providing regular breaks to encourage movement throughout the workday.
Encourage Healthy Eating: Promote positive eating habits by providing nutritious food options in the workplace, organising healthy cooking classes or nutrition workshops, and encouraging employees to take lunch breaks and eat away from their desks.
Provide Resources for Stress Management: Don’t forget stress has one hell of an impact on our physical wellbeing. You can help your employees stay healthy by offering stress management resources like counselling services, meditation programmes, or flexible work schedules.
Offer Wellness Programs: Offer wellness programs that focus on physical wellbeing, such as fitness initiatives or even ‘quit smoking’ programmes.
Support a Healthy Work Environment: Promote a healthy work environment by encouraging ergonomic workstations, providing standing desks, and offering resources for eye health, like blue light filters for computer screens.
Employee Mental Wellbeing
Employee mental wellbeing is a far more delicate topic, and refers to an individual's state of emotional and psychological health in the workplace.
It covers a whole host of elements, including:
Emotional resilience
Stress levels (again?!)
Work-life balance
Access to mental health resources
Work environment
Mental wellbeing is an incredibly important aspect of an employee's overall wellbeing, and just like physical health, it can have a significant impact on productivity, engagement, job satisfaction and even an organisation’s revenue. It’s anticipated that mental health will cost the global economy approximately $16 trillion by 2030.
When most people talk about workplace wellbeing nowadays, mental wellbeing is generally what they’re talking about. And it’s no surprise: the annual cost of wellbeing issues to employers has increased by at least 25% since 2019.
Here are some ways you can go about improving the mental wellbeing of your employees:
Offer Mental Health Days: Offer employees the option to take a mental health day when they need to recharge their batteries.
Celebrate Achievements: Recognise and celebrate employee achievements, big or small. It helps build a sense of accomplishment and motivation.
Foster Positive Communication: Encourage open communication and feedback between employees and managers. This nurtures a sense of community and encourages everyone to work together.
Hold Social Events: Organise social events like team lunches, happy hours, or team-building activities. You’ll see a real change in camaraderie and in the fostering of positive relationships.
Encourage Exercise: Remember we told you physical and mental health are linked? By offering on-site fitness facilities, organising fitness challenges or events, and encouraging active commuting options, you’ll be making a positive impact on mental wellbeing too.
Provide Mental Health First Aid Training: Partner with companies that offer mental health first aid training so that your employees have an internal group that are trained to support them.
Employee Financial Wellbeing
Employee financial wellbeing refers to your staff’s overall state of financial health and stability. A financially sound employee is fully capable of managing their own finances in a way that enables them to:
Meet their financial goals
Reduce financial stress and anxiety
Maintain a sense of financial security
Make wise financial decisions for their families and themselves
Feel confident and secure about their financial futures
Be content with their salaries
Pay off debt sustainably
Helping employees improve their financial wellbeing can be tough. In most cases, a pay rise will only go so far (although it will certainly help!). Instead, financial wellbeing is about equipping employees with the skills and tools to address money worries before they get out of hand.
Here are just a few ways you can help your employees with their financial wellbeing:
Education and Training: Offer financial education programmes, such as workshops or seminars, to help employees understand personal finance topics, including budgeting, saving, investing, and retirement planning.
Provide Financial Planning Services: Give your employees access to financial planning services, such as financial advisors or online financial planning tools.
Offer Financial Wellness Benefits: Financial wellness benefits, such as financial counselling or reimbursement for financial wellness programmes, can help bolster your EVPs and make your workplace benefits all the more enticing.
Social Wellbeing
The black sheep of the family is social wellbeing in the workplace. Less discussed than its siblings, but no less important, this pillar refers to the positive interpersonal relationships, social support, and sense of belonging that employees experience in their work environment.
It’s an essential component of creating a positive and productive workplace culture.
Some of the factors that contribute to social wellbeing in the workplace include:
Positive relationships with co-workers and supervisors
Opportunities for collaboration and teamwork
Open and honest communication
Work-life balance
If you’re curious how you can help your employees feel more supported, valued, and connected to their colleagues and the organisation, here are some tips for improving workplace social wellbeing:
Encourage social interaction: Create opportunities for social interaction by organising team-building activities, social events, and other group get-togethers that allow employees to bond and connect.
Provide opportunities for peer-to-peer recognition: Build a positive and supportive work environment by encouraging employees to recognise and celebrate the achievements of their colleagues.
Encourage open communication: Create an environment where employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts, ideas, and concerns with their colleagues and supervisors.
Promote diversity and inclusion: Establish a culture where employees respect and appreciate each other's differences, as part of a welcoming and inclusive work environment.
Support mentoring and coaching: Encourage mentoring and coaching relationships among employees to help foster a sense of community and support growth and development.
Support social causes: Urge employees to get involved in social causes by offering volunteer opportunities or supporting charitable organisations.
What Are the Benefits?
Now, you might be thinking, "Okay, that all sounds nice, but why should I care about workplace wellbeing?" Well, ya bloody buzzkill, there are actually a ton of benefits to investing in your employees' wellbeing.
For one, happy and healthy employees are more productive, more engaged in their work and less likely to suffer burnout. They're also more likely to stick around long-term, which can save companies money on hiring and training costs. On top of that, it also makes your workplace a lot less toxic.
But what about the commercial benefits? Well, for every £1 spent by a company on wellbeing and mental health interventions, you could get back £5.30 in reduced absence, presenteeism, and staff turnover.
But let's be real here, as much as we all might strive for a perfectly happy and healthy work environment, sometimes things just don't go according to plan. Maybe you have a boss who insists on scheduling meetings during your lunch break, or maybe your co-workers insist on microwaving fish in the break room every day (please don't be that person).
These things can’t be helped. As much as we might want utopian workplaces, nothing will ever be perfect. But that sure as hell doesn’t mean we shouldn’t at least try.
If you’re looking to improve the wellbeing of your employees, but don’t know where to start, then check out our workplace wellbeing consultancy. Employee wellbeing is also a topic I cover as part of my keynote speaking services.
Written by Michael
Michael Mauro is the founder of a forward-thinking organisation specialising in leadership, HR and employee development. With over a decade of global experience, Michael has become a leading voice on topics such as culture, inclusion, wellbeing, and the future of leadership.
