11 Tips for Taking a Holistic Approach to Employee Wellbeing Programs

Employees are the lifeblood for sustainability of any business. A dedicated employee is one who takes full ownership of their role and goes above and beyond for the company as a whole. They are committed to the company’s mission and goals. Which is why your employee’s wellbeing is of utmost importance to keep them engaged, motivated and satisfied with their career.

The People Collective (TPC)—a Slack community for HR professionals across Southeast Asia and beyond—recently hosted an in-person workshop to uncover the importance and ways to design effective employee wellbeing programs.

The wisdom and guidance uncovered was too good to not share. Inspired by the insightful discussions and drawing on the experiences of our community, this blog highlights those tips for organizations to consider when designing comprehensive and employee-focused wellbeing programs.

What are employee wellbeing programs?

Building resilient and thriving teams should be at the heart of every HR department. Organizations have a powerful opportunity and responsibility to improve employee wellbeing in every facet of their organization.

According to Gallup, 7 in 10 people globally are struggling or suffering in their lives. Leaders and managers are encouraged to cultivate the whole person at work, not just the employee. This is where employee wellbeing programs come into play.

Employee wellbeing programs are usually offered through the workplace and aim to improve and promote employee’s health and fitness. While employee wellbeing looks different for every organization, some examples include flexible work schedules (remote or hybrid work models), employee financial wellness programs, smoking cessation programs, on-site fitness centers, employee assistance programs (EAP) and more.

Why should you provide employee wellbeing programs?

As highlighted by the CDC, employees in good health are more likely to deliver optimal performance in the workplace, which is often incentive enough for employers to invest in their employee’s wellbeing. Here are some additional benefits that employee wellness programs offer:

Creating a healthy work environment: A holistic employee wellbeing program promotes a positive company culture, encouraging employees to adopt a healthier lifestyle. At a greater scale, it fosters a collective commitment to better employee wellbeing, creating work-life balance that many employees value.
Better engagement and job satisfaction: Employee wellbeing programs signal to employees that they are valued and prioritized. This leads to higher employee engagement and job satisfaction.
Improving employee mental health: With high work demands, an increasing number of employees suffer from burnout. This global phenomena can be identified and rectified through implementation of employee wellness programs. Mental health wellbeing programs such as mental health days at work, stress reduction workshops, resilience training and more are effective ways to improve overall employee wellbeing.

Now that we’ve established the importance of employee wellbeing programs, let’s explore ways in which you can create a comprehensive employee wellbeing program for your organization.

Achieving a Holistic Approach to Employee Wellbeing Programs

Put simply by our workshop speaker, Helen Snowball, Chief People Officer of PropertyGuru Group, “you need energy for performance and commercial success, and energy can only be achieved by building a holistic approach to employee well-being.”

Together, Snowball and Clinical Psychologist and Vice President of Clinical at Intellect, Dr. Oliver Suendermann, explored the various elements HR leaders should consider when building and running employee wellbeing programs.

Here are their 11 essential tips on how you can create and maintain a comprehensive employee wellbeing program that fosters resilience and trust in your organization.

1. Listen to your employees

Active listening is important for organizational success but it is easier said than done. Research has shown that two in three employees feel their voice has been ignored in some way by their manager or employer. Yet, employee’s voices are among the most important when it comes to building a successful business.

“It is important to understand the voice of the customer, which is your employees. Alongside our routine initiatives, we have frequent conversations with our employees to ensure the programs we’re building are genuinely meeting the needs of the people within the organization.” – Helen Snowball

There are countless ways to gather employee feedback and data to inform your approach to employee wellbeing programs. HR teams can create and distribute employee surveys to assess the current state of employee wellbeing. Alongside your survey, encourage employees to provide feedback on ways to improve existing initiatives. By doing so, you can develop an employee-centric wellness program.

2. Take a multifaceted approach

“Mental wellbeing has several pillars”, shared Dr. Oliver “to allow people to function to the best of their abilities to cope with normal stresses, organizations need to focus on the various aspects that makeup wellbeing”.

As defined by Gallup, employee wellbeing is a multifaceted concept and spans across various dimensions of life including career, social, financial, physical and community. A multifaceted approach helps ensure organizations are addressing the whole employee, in both their professional and personal life.

Ensure your initiatives and workshops are equally addressing physical, mental, financial, social and purposeful wellbeing. In other words, it’s great to offer a gym membership to employees, but don’t stop there. Financial wellness resources, mental health days, employee goal setting, and fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace are equally essential to holistic wellness practices.

3. Be flexible in your offerings

Provide options for employees to choose programs that align with their individual needs. When considering employee wellbeing programs, consider the pain points that you have identified through employee feedback. “Treating people as a whole person and acknowledging the uniqueness of each of us is important when you are thinking through your approach.”, shared Snowball.

Flexibility and personalization honors the various needs and individuality of your employees, helping to build sustainable employee wellbeing programs that serve your entire workforce.

Here are some examples to achieve flexible employee wellbeing programs:

Offer a variety of program options: To cater to the diverse needs and preferences of employees at different life stages, wellness programs should offer a variety of options. Just as a gym provides equipment and classes for all fitness levels, a robust wellness program should offer a range of initiatives to address different interests and goals. For example, offering a range of fitness classes such as yoga, boxing, and badminton. This inclusive approach ensures that employees can find initiatives that resonate with them.
Allow employee choice: Empower employees to take charge of their wellbeing by giving them the autonomy to choose programs that best suit their individual goals and interests. Consider conducting surveys or focus groups to understand employee preferences and tailor program offerings accordingly.
Personalization: Design programs with flexibility in mind. This could involve offering different program lengths, formats (such as in-person or online), and difficulty levels to cater to a wider range of employee needs and preferences.

4. Embed wellbeing into your daily operations

Incorporating employee wellbeing strategies into your daily operations ensures wellness is not an afterthought but a value baked into the core of your organization.

Consider your employee lifecycle stages and integrate wellbeing initiatives into each respective workflow. For example, include a wellness questionnaire or survey in your onboarding process, or add wellness focused goal questions to employee performance reviews. On a smaller scale, encourage employees to take breaks throughout the workday and coach managers to lead by example by scheduling messages to be sent within standard working hours or scheduling their annual leave.

5. Train your workforce

Wellness initiatives go beyond the programs you offer. Leadership plays a crucial role in building a happy, healthy workforce. As Dr. Oliver pointed out, “Direct managers have a big impact on our mental health as external life stressors”.

“If we’re not safe in the office—and that’s largely determined by our managers—then our mental health is going to take a toll. Managers need to have a good understanding of empathy and support. Mental health first aid is an excellent way to upskill your managers if you want to improve employee wellbeing.” – Dr. Oliver Suendermann

There are many ways HR teams can equip managers with the skills to support employee wellbeing and recognize signs of distress.

As an employer, you can empower your workforce by:

Training on identifying signs of distress: Equip managers with the skills to recognize potential signs of employee distress, such as changes in mood, work performance, or absenteeism. This could involve training managers on common mental health conditions and how to spot the warning signs.
Supportive resources: Train managers to provide support and resources to employees who are struggling with wellbeing. This could involve training managers on how to have constructive conversations about wellbeing, how to connect employees to the appropriate resources, and how to make reasonable work accommodations.
Open communication: Foster a culture of open communication between managers and employees. This will encourage employees to feel comfortable approaching their managers with concerns about their wellbeing.

6. When in doubt, partner with experts

Employee wellness programs require a level of understanding about mental health that may be overwhelming or ambiguous to some HR teams. If you’re feeling ill-equipped to take on mental health programs or navigate best practices, it may be the right time to partner with experts such as Intellect. Doing so can help take the guesswork out of which benefits can best serve your employees, and allows your organization access to roadmaps tailored to your team’s needs.

When paired with comprehensive HRIS such as Omni, HR teams and managers are further equipped with the tools needed to build and sustain a culture of belonging that is backed by data and streamlined for stronger employee engagement.

7. Balance global and local needs

With the rise of distributed teams, it’s important to balance both global and local needs to create an inclusive and effective employee wellbeing program that aligns with your organizational goals.

First, conduct a needs assessment for your global workforce to identify their needs and priorities. Account for any cultural differences to best support the requirements of your diverse workforce. Also, take note of relevant legal and regulatory frameworks that apply to your initiatives and ensure your strategy is compliant.

Informed with your employees’ needs assessment, create a flexible wellbeing strategy that is relevant on a global scale, while providing tailored resources that suit the needs of your employees within every location. This can include offering global guidelines for diet and fitness, while offering locally relevant fitness programs and incentives.

8. Walk the talk with leadership buy-in

When discussing what leaders can do, Snowball drew attention to the importance of being a role model. “It’s important to have leaders that exemplify role model behavior. You need to have leaders that don’t just say ‘I care about your wellbeing, but can you stay till seven?’ As a leader herself, she embodies this by taking time-off and avoiding emails on the weekend. Snowball further highlighted the importance of fostering a positive and open culture which allows employees to confidently voice out their feelings without fear of repercussions.

Clearly, action speaks louder than words. Employers and leaders need to ‘walk the talk’ and actively embody the organization’s goal to improve employee wellness.

Simple actions such as 1-on-1 check-ins with employees to check on their current progress, encouraging team members to take breaks and time off, recognizing and sympathizing with employees’ struggles and redirecting them to appropriate resources can make a significant impact within your organization.

When employees perceive the active role of leadership in modeling and promoting a wellbeing culture, they are also more likely to reciprocate, encouraging one another to adopt and utilize available employee wellness programs.

9. Measure, but don’t rely on data

Dr. Oliver underscored the importance of technology as a key tool for measuring program effectiveness, “You need to have some data to demonstrate the effectiveness of your initiatives.” Gathering data to assess performance, identify areas for improvement, and track positive outcomes, in addition to assessing the rate of your program utilization helps inform the investments your organization makes in wellbeing initiatives. Additionally, data can be a helpful unit to demonstrate the return on investment, a metric that remains crucial for garnering leadership buy-in..

However, understand that data is an imperfect measure, as it’s impossible to isolate results to any one initiative.

Some considerations when assessing your employee wellness program include:

Track key metrics: Monitor relevant metrics such as absenteeism, turnover, employee engagement, and productivity to assess program effectiveness.
Demonstrate ROI: Quantify the benefits of wellbeing programs to gain leadership support and secure resources.
Track program effectiveness: Collect data to track the impact of your wellbeing programs. This data could include metrics such as employee engagement, absenteeism, healthcare costs, and productivity. Regularly reviewing this data will help you to identify areas where your programs are successful and where they may need improvement.
ROI demonstration: Use data to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of your wellbeing programs. This data can be used to secure leadership support and resources for your programs. However, it is important to consider both quantitative and qualitative data when measuring program effectiveness.

10. Focus on accessibility

Dr. Oliver stressed the importance of cultural sensitivity when sourcing service providers, stating, “You want to make sure that the providers available to your team are culturally effective. For example, a helpline should be available 24/7 and employees should have access to localized counselors, who speak their language and understand their culture.”

Snowball echoed this sentiment, underlining the need for personalization. “The program needs to have some degree of commonality, but the ones that I think are incredibly effective are the ones that offer a little bit of customization and choice because what I need is different to what you need.”

Both experts agreed on the significance of treating employees as unique individuals and suggested the following approaches to achieve accessible and tailored employee wellbeing programs:

Tailored programs: Tailor programs to the specific cultural backgrounds and needs of your workforce. This could involve considering cultural norms and preferences when designing program activities and ensuring that program materials are available in multiple languages.
Accessibility: Make wellbeing resources readily available to all employees, regardless of location or work arrangements. This could involve offering programs in a variety of formats (e.g., in-person, online) and providing alternative formats for program materials (e.g., audio recordings, transcripts) for employees with disabilities.

Finally, it’s important to note that creating and maintaining a comprehensive employee wellness program is a collective effort. It’s as important for HR teams to do the research to bring about holistic, tailored wellness initiatives to their teams as it is for leadership to model healthy behavior and employees to engage with the program’s offerings.

Employees need to be empowered to take charge of their wellbeing, which happens through every level of your organization. Wellness must be viewed as a shared responsibility between employees, leadership, and HR when it comes to fostering a culture of wellbeing.

By incorporating various perspectives from different seniority, departments, cultures, and backgrounds,organizations can achieve a holistic, well structured employee wellbeing program that has the potential to cultivate a thriving workforce.

Connect with Like-Minded HR Professionals at TPC

HR professionals are setting the standard for championing employee well-being, and doing the hard work of navigating the path to a happier, healthier professional future. At The People Collective, we’re committed to bringing like-minded and skilled HR leaders together to share resources, spark important conversations, and promote collective action to better the world of work. These are just some of the insights shared during a recent People Collective event, stay tuned to join us for future discussions!

If you haven’t already, join our vibrant community of HR leaders that make up our virtual community.