From where we work to seeing friends and family, the pandemic has led to widespread changes across every aspect of our lives. We’re only just beginning to get a sense of how different our workplaces might be moving forward.
It’s not just hybrid working and hotdesking, it applies to all aspects of working life including what people have now come to expect from their employers. It’s a shift that’s especially visible when thinking about health and wellbeing.
Health in the workplace was often reactive. If you’d have asked someone in 2019, there might have been a bit of reluctance to talk to their manager or HR team about their health in detail beyond calling in sick. The pandemic has normalised a much more open dialogue about our health – mental and physical. People have seen how fragile but valuable their health is, and they want to take steps to actively protect it.
Being faced with such wholesale changes has sharpened our priorities, and health and wellbeing is coming out on top. These changed expectations apply just as much to our professional as well as our personal lives, and employees are expecting more from companies as a result.
As well as more lifestyle-focused changes, such as 27 per cent choosing to prioritise roles that give a better work-life balance, people now expect their employer to do more. In our recent Coping with Covid research, a quarter of people told us they expect more wellbeing support from their employer.
Justifying increased investment in what’s often dismissed as a “staff perk”, is always tricky, but it becomes especially hard when budgets are tighter than ever. There has to be a change in mindset at leadership level. Wellbeing isn’t a nice- to-have, it’s a strategic tool that helps reduce bottom line costs and increase productivity and retention.
Not only have expectations grown, the need is greater too. Situations, such as the growing mental health crisis, that were already reaching critical levels have escalated with the pandemic. Last year saw a 10 per cent rise in absences due to poor mental health, costing businesses £14bn. As we start to plan for recovery, we can’t afford to overlook the important role that health and wellbeing must play.
It can be daunting knowing how to move from this historically reactive role to supporting team wellbeing more proactively, but it is both affordable and achievable for almost every company.
For those taking their first steps into health and wellbeing, a health cash plan can really come into its own, showing employees that the company is not just listening but responding. From as little as £1.50 per employee, having a health cash plan in place gives people that sense of control over their health by enabling them to get treatment on their own terms, not at the mercy of ever more stretched GPs and burgeoning waiting lists, with the added benefit of reducing financial stress at a time when many are worried about their personal finances.
For companies that already have a cash plan in place, there are opportunities to tailor a wellbeing strategy to employees’ wants and needs. Using surveys and conversations to establish areas people would most like support with is the first step, then initiatives like wellbeing webinars offer an accessible way to meet demand. We’ve even introduced the ability to book a single place on a webinar, allowing companies to tailor their approach at a 1:1 level.
With any new programme, it’s important to make sure it matches new ways of working. Working with providers that are able to easily adapt to hybrid delivery approaches and give employees the ability to access support from home or work will deliver better ROI, engagement and results for the business and individuals alike. It might be tempting for employers to see these changed expectations as a burden, as one more thing for already stretched HR teams and budgets to deliver, but that would be thinking about wellbeing in the wrong way.
Just as companies invest in providing the right equipment or training so teams can do their jobs better and quicker leading to happier customers and stronger results, we need to think of investing in wellbeing in the same way – as a strategic tool.
Meeting these great expectations doesn’t cost the earth, and employers that recognise, invest and truly embrace this new part of working life stand to recover quicker and reap the benefits of an engaged, productive team.