To improve employee well-being means getting to know your employees on a new level.
With more than 8 out of 10 employees at risk for burnout in 2024, it’s essential leadership teams begin to address the causes.
Employers can start by being proactive about increasing employee satisfaction levels. A key way to kick things off is running regular employee surveys. Doing this will give management teams direct insight into employee sentiment, and allow for them to make relevant improvements.
Learn about this and more in our blog post!
What is Employee Wellbeing?
Employee wellbeing refers to the overall state of health, happiness, and satisfaction of employees within an organization.
It encompasses various aspects of an employee's life, both inside and outside the workplace, and is influenced by factors such as physical health, mental well-being, work-life balance, job satisfaction, and engagement.
What Makes Up Employee Wellbeing?
Employee well-being is composed of various factors that contribute to someone's overall health, happiness, and satisfaction in the workplace.
While the specific components may vary across job types and industries, here are some key elements that make employee well-being.
Typically with employee wellbeing, the most common aspects are: physical health, mental well-being, emotional support, work-life balance, job satisfaction, financial wellness, and employee engagement.
Why Is It So Important?
Employee well-being is arguably one of the most important aspects of a business.
First off, treating employees with respect and giving them ample opportunities promotes increased satisfaction levels, leading to higher productivity rates.
This has an impact on every area of a company, especially when handling customer service needs (trust us, customers can pick up when employees are less than thrilled). So not only will businesses see increased employee happiness, but they will likely see a positive impact on their customer satisfaction levels.
Secondly, employee wellbeing is a sign a company understands the importance of proper communication. And a company needs good communication to stay afloat.
Employee Well-Being Vs. Burnout
It’s important to note the difference between employee well-being and burnout in order to run a successful workplace.
Employee well-being is just as it sounds: it references the level of care employees experience in the workplace.
To create a sense of employee well-being, a number of factors must be at play from leadership teams.
At the center of employee well-being is proper communication among teams in the office.
This will ensure staff feels open sharing thoughts, opinions, and concerns about their work. As a result, when issues arise they can be corrected swiftly while improving the employee experience.
Whereas, employee burnout refers to employee dissatisfaction and/or exhaustion for a variety of reasons within the workplace.
This can stem from heavy workloads, lack of opportunities within the workplace, work-life balance challenges, and so on.
Experiencing burnout can quickly begin to take its toll on an employee’s mental health, which inevitably leads to poor productivity levels.
Think of it like this: employee well-being and burnout are essentially at the opposite end of the spectrum. But when employees lack a sense of well-being, the result is often burnout.
Recommended Reading: 5 Sure-Fire Ways to Prevent Employee Burnout
Strategies to Increase Employee Wellbeing
Improving employee wellbeing has become increasingly important in the modern workplace as organizations recognize the benefits of investing in the health and happiness of their employees.
When employees are well supported, they tend to be more productive, engaged, and motivated, leading to improved performance and business outcomes.
We recommend implementing the below strategies to increase employee wellbeing in your workplace.
1. Conduct Employee Surveys
Employee surveys allow organizations to gather feedback directly from employees, giving them a voice to express their concerns, challenges, and needs.
They are a great channel for team members to raise specific issues or concerns related to their wellbeing.
Whether it's work-related stress, lack of resources, or inadequate support, employees can highlight these concerns through survey responses.
Our employee survey company finds that by asking specific questions about various aspects of wellbeing, such as work-life balance, job satisfaction, and support systems, organizations can gain insights into areas that require improvement.
And yes, there’s more where that came from.
Watch our video on additional employee survey benefits:
It's important to note that conducting surveys is just the first step.
To truly improve employee wellbeing, organizations must be committed to acting on the feedback received, implementing meaningful changes, and regularly reassessing and adapting their strategies based on the evolving needs of their workforce.
💡 The Key Takeaway: To improve employee health and wellbeing, staff surveys are the step that needs to be taken. Through them, leadership will be able to pinpoint key areas of improvement. Once identified, steps can be taken to implement new systems that can promote employee wellness.
Recommended Reading: Using a Third-Party for Employee Surveys [Costs, Process, Benefits]
2. Encourage Work-Life and Workload-Balance
In today’s technology-centric world, more and more organizations are offering flexible work arrangements, such as remote work options, flexible scheduling, or compressed work weeks.
In cases where remote or hybrid work is not possible, encourage employees to take breaks and vacations to recharge or other organizational strategies to promote work-life balance.
Beyond that, when improving employee wellbeing, organizations should focus on workload balance as well.
In other words, ensure workloads are reasonable and manageable for employees.
Managers should host weekly meetings with each team member to encourage prioritization, effective time management, and provide resources or support to manage workloads appropriately.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Regular check-ins with employees can help with prioritization and workload management. This ensures a good balance between work and life responsibilities.
3. Foster Career Development
Offer opportunities for employees to develop their skills and advance their careers.
Provide training, mentorship programs, and clear pathways for growth within the organization. This promotes a sense of purpose, satisfaction, and personal growth.
In the same sentiment, it is important to recognize and reward these achievements.
Ways to acknowledge and reward employees for their contributions include:
- Employee recognition programs
- Regularly commending employees' efforts when they do a task outside of their role
- Providing opportunities for them to celebrate their successes
💡 The Key Takeaway: To improve employee wellbeing, organizations should offer opportunities for career development, provide training and mentorship programs, and establish clear pathways for growth
4. Offer Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
Organizations should consider providing confidential resources and counseling services to support employees' mental and emotional well-being.
EAPs can help employees cope with personal or work-related challenges, stress, and other difficulties they may encounter.
Another like-minded strategy is to train and support managers to be effective leaders who prioritize employee wellbeing.
For instance, consider providing training in areas such as communication, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Increasing employee wellbeing starts from the top. Train managers to be effective leaders who prioritize employee wellness through communication, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence training.
5. Prioritize Employee Mental Health
Additional employee wellbeing initiatives should focus on mental health in the workplace.
Recently, a study found that 9 in 10 businesses provide at least one form of wellness outreach for staff.
Consider implementing these mindful strategies:
- Meditation sessions
- Group sharing activities
- Advice/talks from local wellness professionals
If this is a little uncomfortable for you, that’s normal.
However, implementing these strategies to improve job satisfaction even per quarter could have a positive impact on employee wellbeing.
What’s more, employees will begin to recognize work as a safe space where they are open to leadership.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Ways to improve employee wellbeing can be found in mindfulness initiatives–this can be anything from brief meditation practices to guest speakers.
6. Support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is a crucial strategy for improving employee wellbeing and creating a positive work environment.
By actively fostering a diverse workforce individuals from various will feel recognized and appreciated.
This should go beyond valuing all races, genders, and sexual orientations, but also valuing what diversity brings to the organization.
Each team member has diverse perspectives, experiences, and ideas that should all be taken into consideration.
Our employee survey company would also recommend establishing metrics and mechanisms to measure progress and hold the organization accountable for DEI initiatives.
This can be achieved by regularly assessing the representation, engagement, and satisfaction of employees from diverse backgrounds through DEI surveys.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Foster a diverse and inclusive workplace where all employees feel respected, valued, and supported. Address biases, promote equal opportunities, and create a sense of belonging for everyone.
7. Carve Out Time to Focus on Company Culture
Another way employers can help improve employee wellbeing is to incorporate some fun into the office – whether that’s remote or virtual.
In fact, our workplace wellness survey found that a good work culture outweighs having a bad manager for 53% of the U.S. workforce.
Carve out some time each week, or bi-monthly, to host happy hours at the office (or on Zoom), where employees can step away from work duties for a bit and unwind.
Playing a few games or simply chatting with one another are good ways to relieve stress and go back to work projects feeling a little refreshed.
💡 The Key Takeaway: A great way to improve employee wellbeing just having fun. Incorporating office parties and semi-regular gaming or happy hours take the stress out of work and allow for a nice break.
Recommended Reading: How to Improve Workplace Culture for Better Long-Term Employment
Empowering Employees
At this point, it’s clear employers can create a sense of empowerment amongst staff by fostering communication. Whether this is through surveys or other means, it’s the number one way to make employees feel like they belong.
This sense of belonging will encourage employees to not only be happier but to be more productive as well.
As we know, the best way to gather direct feedback from employees is by surveying them. Using the survey data, employers can begin to improve their employee strategies.
Aside from surveying, employers can take many other steps to make employees feel connected.
For instance, they can prioritize career development opportunities to ensure staff grow within the company. This is a huge key to ensuring staff feel valued and seen by their management.
Employers can also set aside time to ensure their culture is healthy and welcoming to their staff. Part of this is emphasizing employee wellness and mental health, which can be done in a number of ways based on the specific needs of a company’s staff.
Final Thoughts
By prioritizing and improving employee wellbeing, organizations can create a positive and supportive work environment that contributes to the overall success and happiness of their employees.
As discussed in this article, organizations can promote employee wellbeing through a range of initiatives and policies, such as:
- Wellness programs
- Employee benefits
- Flexible work arrangements
- Mental health support
- Professional development opportunities
- Promoting a healthy work-life balance
Although the greatest way to measure and understand your employee's specific needs for increasing their wellbeing is through surveys.
Custom employee surveys will pinpoint specific areas of improvement your organization must focus on to improve morale, team engagement, and the overall workplace.
Improve Employee Wellbeing With Our Employee Survey Company
Did we convince you that in order to have a great company, you need to improve employee wellbeing? We hope so. Any company can benefit from the strategies we’ve mentioned in this post.
Drive Research is a market research company based in New York. Our team has years of experience in employee surveys and can craft one according to your specific business needs.
Want to know more about our market research services? We want you to! Talk to us through any of the ways below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Lark Allen
As a Content Marketing Specialist, Lark has a strong background and passion for creative, professional, and journalistic writing. She is also a self-proclaimed music freak and 90s enthusiast.
Learn more about Lark, here.
