Employers across the country have been keen to offer workplace wellness programs. While these programs are a great start to improving the physical health of employees, they miss the mark on focusing on an employee’s overall wellness. A PwC analysis revealed that employees view employee engagement as a sense of fulfillment with their job, contributing to their sense of wellness as a whole. When combined, these two realizations reveal that something’s missing. That’s where workplace well-being comes in.
The concept of well-being can have implications on an employee’s overall quality of life, health and happiness. From an organizational standpoint, an employee’s well-being is directly related to the quality of their work, as well as their engagement, performance and productivity. According to a Gallup poll, organizations with highly engaged employees outperform their competition in earnings per share by 147%.
In a tightened labor market, where it’s imperative to retain your top-performing employees as well as recruit the best and brightest candidates, taking strides to incorporate a holistic approach to wellness is a viable solution. Fortunately, doing so isn’t as complicated or expensive as it may seem. The best practices listed throughout this toolkit will serve as examples for how you can incorporate initiatives that will address and support the four tenants of well-being: physical, mental, financial and social.
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Over the last few years, employers nationwide have been all about wellness, particularly when it concerns return on investment (ROI). With the increased focus on wellness, employers are shifting away from only offering workplace wellness initiatives that encourage improvements in physical health and wellness. Instead, there’s been a shift to integrate total wellness, which is often referred to as well-being, into their company’s culture.
Remember, company culture is the personality of a company and the environment in which its employees work. It is the unifying element that holds everyone in an organization together. Moreover, it has been proven that employees who identify with and feel a sense of belonging to a company’s culture are more productive, happier and want to work for the company for longer.
By incorporating a focus on overall well-being into your company’s culture, it will encourage employees to identify with the concept and will eventually become part of the way your organization operates. An increased focus on well-being may also result in improved employee health and wellness, which leads to happier and healthier employees. Happy and healthy employees means lower health care costs, higher engagement and increased recruitment and retention results.
Kristen Russell
Kristen founded Fall River Employee Benefits as the culmination of her insurance industry career as an actuary, underwriting executive & consultant. As an Assistant Vice President at Great-West Healthcare (now part of CIGNA), she managed a $1 Billion block of health insurance. She also worked as a Senior Consultant at Reden & Anders, consulting to insurance companies and large employers throughout the country. Ms. Russell received a Bachelor of Science, Business Administration in Actuarial Science, is a member of the American Academy of Actuaries and achieved Fellowship in the Society of Actuaries through a rigorous nine-year series of exams.
Kristen grew up in Iowa but has lived in Colorado since 1993, currently living near our office in the Lower Highlands neighborhood near downtown Denver. She enjoys bicycling, hiking, traveling and has a special passion for non-profit volunteering. She is married to an incredibly talented photojournalist, has two adult stepdaughters and an adorable Border Collie/Lab mix named Chaco.