A healthy workforce is a productive workforce, right?

But to what extend should employers seek to manage their employee’s wellbeing?

In this insight, Melius explores how to intelligently manage workforce physical and emotional wellbeing in order to boost productivity, team cohesiveness and staff retention.

Wellbeing initiatives typically cover elements such as mental health, social inclusion, financial knowhow, job satisfaction, fitness and nutrition.

There’s business logic in play too. Research shows that a happy and healthy workforce can reduce the costs associated with unplanned leave, disability and sickness by over £1,000 per person per year.

Wellbeing programmes typically have a range of components designed to appeal to the differing interests, circumstances and motivations of an organisations workforce.

Our HR team have picked six of the most impactful initiatives that organisations should consider incorporating into their wellbeing programmes.

1.       Flexible Working Arrangements. Presenteeism is dead. Providing the latitude to work from home or skip peak-time commutes is a major motivator. 

2.       Financial Education. People perform better when they’re not worrying about paying the bills. 

3.       Emotional Intelligence training. The better we all understand how our words and actions are perceived by those around us, the more mindful we can be of how we behave towards colleagues and customers. 

4.       Access to healthy food. Ditch the fizzy drinks, chocolate and crisps vending machines and replace with healthy snacks and fresh food. 

5.       Highly visible recognition programmes that demonstrate the organisations gratitude for the contribution made by its employees. 

6.       Physical activity. Get people moving with organised fitness activities to tackle the physical and mental disadvantages of being deskbound all day long.

Effective implementation depends on being able to make a strong business case, having identified improvements and being able to clearly articulate the messaging to your employees. Like all business projects, success lies with execution and communication.

Get in touch with our HR practice lead Vanessa Lynch for a free informal conversation about improving wellbeing in your business.