Society is forever changed after 2 years of being held in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic. While people, companies, and industries are still figuring things out, we can already see some massive changes when it comes to the workplace.
Specifically, changes to how companies are starting to measure, retain, and even entice their employees.
Say what you want about the pandemic, but it has underlined the need for comprehensive wellness programs that can take care of a person from a holistic standpoint. Companies are also realizing they are not just the main factor that could influence a person’s financial life. They also play a huge role in their employee’s wellness.
The Stats on Corporate Wellness Programs
A Gartner Survey of 52 HR executives found that companies are doubling down on their wellness programs:
- 94% invested extra in their wellness programs
- 85% increased support for mental health
- 50% increased support for physical health
- 38% increased support for financial health
Wellness isn’t just the responsibility of the employee anymore. Companies are realizing that through comprehensive wellness programs, they can better predict and improve employee performance, and even increase employee retention.
Because it’s not just companies warming up to these programs: individuals are seeking services to improve their well-being in different ways.
What Should a Wellness Program Include?
If your organization is now looking to establish its first wellness program, the very first step to take is assessing the current well-being of your employees.
Wellness programs work best when they can directly speak to the needs, expectations, and individual circumstances of employees. For example, a company with many young adults may need family planning services. Notoriously competitive industries and high stress should strengthen their mental health services.
By asking your employees, you can effectively learn what they need from a wellness program. In general, such programs will take a holistic approach to help employees lead a balanced life, such as:
- Physical health services – Such as adding health and fitness services to the program, providing tools and resources of education, or binding on a health coach to help employees improve their physical health;
- Mental health services – Implementing stress-reduction protocols, educating employees about their mental health, improving their access to mental health services, etc.
- Financial health – Helping employees plan their financial future, save money, invest, and even create safety nets in case of emergencies.
Of course, the wellness program can have many additional layers, depending on the needs and expectations of your employees.
Do Wellness Programs Work?
Helping someone improve their well-being isn’t a one-sided task: it takes 2 to tango.
But what wellness programs do is offer employees an easy, accessible way to take care of their health and well-being.
Whether at an individual level it will work or not, generally depends on the person. Some thrive better with 1-on-1 wellness coaching than with broad coaching programs.
But even so, wellness programs work towards improving the company-employee relationship and offer people all the resources they need to care for themselves and their well-being.