Keeping your staff happy, healthy and fit has a direct effect on their performance, studies have shown. With employees demonstrating they can be more productive, efficient, engaged and able to deal with constant changes within the workplace if their well-being is taken into account within the workplace. The major concern for employees is that only 1 in 10 organisations have a standalone well-being strategy in place according to the new report from the CIPD.
Only half of businesses reported that an employee’s well-being is on their agenda, while the other half felt that operational demands take precedence over employee well-being considerations. These organisations are more likely to be reactive rather than proactive when issues arise. These businesses also reported that longer hours were the norm within their organisation.
Results vary per sector (figure below) and per size of the business, for example, organisations with less than 50 employees are more likely to take into account employee well-being when business decisions are being made. Larger companies are less likely to be flexible when it comes to ad-hoc or individual requests, only 31% of businesses with 250-1000 employees and only 12% with more than 5,000 employees showing they are willing to adapt.
The chart below shows well-being strategies, by sector (% of respondents – source CIPD absence report)
Only 8% of organizations stated they had a stand-alone well-being strategy in place, and with 20% showing that they have a plan to implement some sort of strategy. Organisations that achieved their latest absence target are shown to be more proactive when it comes to employee well-being. They were also more likely to achieve their absence targets than those who offered no benefits to their employees, for example medical insurance, fresh fruit, healthy eating and physiotherapy being made easily available to employees.
Benefits of Well-Being
Three-quarters of companies offer some sort of health promotion program, the most common initiatives were access to physiotherapy and practical advice on healthy eating. The amount of businesses offering gym memberships has increased from only 18% in 2015 to 30% in 2016. Only a quarter of all companies provide stop smoking support to their employees and less offer health eating options within their canteens.
By implementing employee well-being companies have shown to reduce absenteeism, improve engagement, reduce presenteeism, and improve productivity. With Edays absence management software, you can track all these metrics and have individual reports on your staff’s sickness and be pro-active when it comes to the well-being of your employees.
See how Edays can help your company reduce sickness absence with a Free Demo of the award-winning software.
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Katrina is edays' own People Director with significant UK and international experience in delivering people strategy and value-adding HR solutions across a range of organisations and sectors (including Arriva, Boots, Rolls Royce, the utility and charity sectors). Katrina has over 20 years of experience in Human Resources and is CIPD qualified.