Why Investing in Employee Well-Being and Resilience Should Be on Your To-Do List

Employee well-being and resilience are hot topics in HR right now. In this article we explore why investing in employee well-being and resilience is a no-brainer for your business and provide you with tips on how to get started or progress on your organisation’s well-being journey.

Essentially well-being is about creating a state of contentment where individuals can flourish*. Resilience is about an individual’s ‘bouncebackability’ and developing resilient employees is likely to feed into a well-being agenda.

Historically, well-being has focussed on safe working practices or management of ill-health. But more recently, a much more holistic view of employee well-being has developed.

Sitting alongside this, there has been much more of a focus on employee mental health, given the escalating numbers of employees suffering with poor mental health and the evidential links between poor mental health and poor work outcomes. This is highlighted in the Government’s recent review undertaken by Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer, which places responsibility on employers (along with other stakeholders) to take greater responsibility for employee mental health. In particular, Stevenson and Farmer recommended that all employers, regardless of size, should implement mental health core standards in their business.

If this isn’t enough to persuade you that employee well-being should be high on your agenda, there is growing evidence to suggest that investing in this area produces a financial return in the shape of increased productivity and lower sickness absence as well as making your organisation a great place to work.

Whilst a number of organisations have some well-being initiatives already in place, the evidence shows that well-being programmes will be most successful where they are central to the organisation. So where should you start? Below are our top tips:

• Get buy in at a senior level. Your senior leaders set the tone and lead by example. Demonstrating the business benefits might help you to do this.
• Identify what will work for your organisation. No two businesses are the same and what is important to one workforce might not be to another. Speak to employees via employee forums or use surveys to drill down into the details of what initiatives might work best. Look into whether there are any recognised well-being initiatives that might be useful.
• Prioritise. Are there any quick wins you can introduce? Certain initiatives may be cheaper and easier to implement – get moving with these and then move onto the trickier, longer term projects.
• Keep well-being on the agenda. Don’t just tick it off the list and move on. Keep the conversation alive by continuing to publicise what you are doing and continue to talk about well-being.
• Monitor and evaluate. Only by doing this will you see what is working and positive outcomes will pave the way for future investment.

Narrow Quay HR can help your organisation on its well-being journey. Get in touch with us today to find out more.

*CIPD