Should I invest more in employee wellbeing?

Over the last couple of months the world has had a much more familiar look to it.

 Mask wearing is now a matter of personal choice in most places, the roads, trains and buses are busy again and there is a sense of business as usual around commerce and industry.

 Looks can be deceiving, of course, and in spite of the hustle and bustle and the outward signs of normality it would be foolish to think that nothing has changed. For many businesses the process of rebuilding from the damaging impact of the pandemic is only just beginning.

 The way we work is probably the area of everyday working life that will see the most permanent change.

 In response to the government’s announcement this week that employees were to be given the right to request flexible working patterns, one high-ranking executive in the financial services sector claimed too many people who want a flexible arrangement are really only interested in having a part-time job for full-time pay.

 In other words, he believes that rather than working from home, too many people will be shirking from home.

 It’s a largely outdated point of view that is at odds with the way many businesses are now choosing to structure and manage their workforces.

 But as much of the British business landscape is choosing to embrace the principle of continuing the flexibility forced upon them through lockdown, there are now more pressing questions about employee wellbeing and how employers need to build staff welfare into both their thinking and their budgets.

 The general consensus seems to be that across the board business leaders are preparing to increase their net investment in looking after their employees.

 The return to the office poses an interesting and, on the surface of it, confusing conundrum for employers who are beginning to find that there is no longer a one-size-fits-all solution to employee wellbeing.

 Before the pandemic, when the natural expectation was that people would be at their desks for at least four, and often five, days each week, it was possible to offer a pan-organisational approach to looking after colleagues. Yes, employers needed to be flexible enough to react to individual circumstance, but by and large a blanket policy or procedure would have been likely to benefit everyone.

 Lockdown ripped up that playbook in quite spectacular style and saw the nation’s home-based workforce split broadly into two groups:

 In one group were those who benefited emotionally and socially from the office environment. They thrived on social interaction and professional collaboration and needed that dynamic in order to stay motivated and produce their best work.

 This group found being away from the office hard and, in mental health terms, challenging.

 In the other group are those who discovered a new freedom in being able to work at home, free from the distractions and frustrations of the workplace. They may well have been more productive because they were less disinclined to work above and beyond. There was no commute, so spending an extra half an hour or hour finishing off projects or tasks was no big deal.

And in addition, they were able to fit previously difficult logistics – school runs, dog walking, medical appointments and the like – into their working day without any detriment to their output.

 This group finds being back in the office hard and, in mental health terms, challenging.

 Employers therefore have a difficult juggling act to take into account. My division of the workforce is crude, obviously – there are other mindsets beyond the two obvious ones I’ve described – but it simply suggests that employers now need to offer more tailored solutions in their employee offer.

 How we look after our people naturally impacts on staff retention, quality of work, morale and culture, and, critically, productivity. As I have said in previous blogs on this subject, looking after people makes good financial sense.

 BUPA’s Executive Wellbeing Index this week suggested that 28 percent of all business leaders in the UK are now making employee mental health their #1 priority, with an estimated average 18 percent uptick in investment to fund new mental health roles and/or upskill existing roles.

 Paid mental health sick leave and private medical insurance that includes mental health care are other staff benefits being considered.

 Against this backdrop, only the most archaic thinking can fail to see and understand that investment in employee health and wellbeing is as critical to the economic recovery of UK business as interest rates and taxes.

 Businesses that pivot their thinking to an empathy model are likely to be much more likely to benefit from employee engagement, improved loyalty and retention, vastly reduced sickness absence, better service and a more highly evolved internal culture.

 And in the end, what all that translates into is not just a healthier workforce, but a healthier bottom line.

 If you’d like to know more about how Constantia Consulting can help you to build empathy and employee wellbeing into your business plan, please contact us for an informal chat.