We live in a world that’s divisive, lonely, and frankly, scary. Sweeping things under the rug and pretending like none of it is happening does nobody any favors. In fact, it’s likely to make people feel worse and hurt employee wellbeing.
Bottling up emotions can cause everything from mental health conditions to chronic pain. So neglecting employee wellbeing can lead to costly medical bills. It can also mean you lose employees to sick leave or disengagement.
Beyond that, it increases business costs: $322 billion is lost globally due to turnover because of employee burnout. 75% of medical costs are the result of preventable conditions.
Work is a huge factor for this. 84% of employees state that work conditions contributed to at least one mental health challenge.
So supporting employee wellbeing is obviously important. 87% of employees consider health and wellness offerings when job hunting. What’s more, 90% report feeling more motivated if leaders support their wellbeing.
So now that we’ve covered why employee wellbeing matters, let’s dive into how you can support it on a budget:
How to support employee wellbeing on a budget
Listen to employees’ needs
To get the most from your team, it’s important to ask what support they need, then act on it. That’s the shortest path to improving employee wellbeing.
Asking what employees want, then not implementing it, breaks their trust and will cause them to disengage.
Acting based on what they want and need from you, on the other hand, increases engagement and ensures they can perform to their fullest.
Host events
Encouraging employees to connect with each other is a simple way to combat one of the biggest causes of health issues: loneliness.
Mental health is declining at a startling rate. Connecting employees in person or online for book clubs, lunch and learns, or other team-building activities shows that you value connection beyond the transactional relationships that happen at work. It can give employee wellbeing a big boost.
Set up ERGs
Employee resource groups are a simple way to connect your team members. They help combat loneliness that can decrease motivation and productivity, while increasing collaboration between teams as they get to know each other beyond traditional role boundaries.
Want to ensure you’re getting the most from your employee groups? Workrowd can help you manage your groups and activities so that you can see what’s working, employees feel compelled to use them, and they stay engaged. Get in touch to find out more.
Encourage employees to take PTO
Many employees feel so busy that they don’t take all their paid leave each year. But this creates a vicious cycle. Without taking their leave, they risk becoming sick and burnt out. They need to learn that their department can run without them, whatever their role is. And things at work are rarely as urgent as they seem.
As one of my former colleagues once said to me: ‘we’re not changing the world – it’s not life or death. Things can wait a few days.’
While there will be some places where it is life or death, for most of us, this rings true.
Taking time off is important for all of us. Being a workaholic can increase stress levels and mean that when an employee does finally take a break, they become sick because they were running on adrenaline for so long that their immune system crashes and they’re susceptible to every germ they come into contact with.
So, even if they’re a remote employee and they spend their week off at the same desk, but gaming instead of working, encourage them to disconnect from work once in a while to improve employee wellbeing.
Respect work hours
Another thing that can lead to burnout is working too many hours without time to switch off.
Employees shouldn’t feel the need to respond at midnight just because that’s when the CEO, who works in a different time zone, sent an email.
They should work when they’re at their best, during their work hours. That’s how you’ll get the most from them and maximize employee wellbeing.
Remember: breaks are your friend
Tying into respecting work hours is the fact that we all need regular breaks.
Breaks allow us to clear our heads and come back to solving problems more effectively.
Sometimes the answer is right in front of us, but we’ve been looking at a challenge too long to fully see it. A five-minute break to get a drink or go for a walk can help us recalibrate and solve a problem faster than staying glued to a desk, staring at a screen and growing increasingly frustrated.
Offer flexible working hours
The traditional 9-5 model doesn’t work with a lot of people’s circadian rhythms. But we’re stuck in a cycle that we can’t seem to break out of. Even though there are no scientific reasons to use the 9-5 model.
Some people are more productive in the afternoons or evenings. Some people get up at five in the morning and have written thousands of words before others have had their first coffee.
Embracing these differing schedules ensures that you have the most effective, productive team possible. It could enable you to have employees working around the clock to solve customer problems, too. This can help you provide a better quality of service alongside boosting employee wellbeing.
Consider part-time work or freelancers
Many jobs don’t actually need to be full-time. In fact, you might get better value for your money by employing someone to work part-time or freelance instead.
Too often, full-time work can be full of busywork. There can be scope creep, or priorities can get confused. Tasks get turned into meetings that don’t actually need to be meetings.
No one can concentrate for eight hours nonstop, five days a week. To convince ourselves that’s happening with anyone is a lie. A lie that hurts employee wellbeing
Conclusion
It’s not difficult to support employee wellbeing on a budget. It simply requires being willing to make accommodations around employees’ needs. And keeping in mind that what they need at one point may be different from what they need in six months’ time.
If you’re ready to up your game on employee wellbeing, Workrowd has your back. With all your employee initiatives available in one place, plus automated surveys and real-time analytics, everyone can tap into what they need with less stress. Get in touch to learn more and schedule your free demo today.
