A 2017 survey of organizations worldwide found not only are 85% investing in well-being but 55% plan to increase their investment, while an additional 5% of organizations plan to introduce employee wellness programs. For the first time, since this survey began in 2012, increasing employee engagement is the top reason cited by HR practitioners and other executives for offering well-being initiatives.

In the U.S., statistics reveal employers spend $742 per employee on health and wellness yet only 24% of employees are willing to invest one to three hours of their time each week to exercise, attend wellness coaching sessions or research and prepare healthier recipes.

Josh Bersin, Principal, Bersin, Deloitte Consulting LLP offers his own recipe for this malaise.

“Disruptive technologies that take advantage of gamification, mobile technology, artificial intelligence, and personalization challenge HR and business leaders to rethink their approach to HR and people management,” he says. “Putting people at the center of their programs and offering irresistible employee experiences will ultimately drive the engagement and performance organizations are aiming for.”

Irresistible employee experiences. Interesting. But what are these experiences exactly?

The most popular employee wellness programs according to a 2017 survey of workplace priorities, covers: mental health, physical activity, smoking cessation, financial management, health club membership, stress management (yoga and mindfulness), weight management, nutrition, and onsite gym facilities. Other common wellbeing initiatives include scheduling flexibility, remote working, subsidized childcare – onsite or otherwise, compassionate care leave, stand-up workstations and the likes.

As for those irresistible employee experiences Bersin talks about, those are as far-reaching and unlimited as the imagination:

• Adoption fee contributions, fertility treatment benefits, “baby bonding” bonuses for new parents
• Unlimited personal time off – take off whenever you want for as long as you want
• Health and wellbeing benefits for partners and children of employees
• Onsite/at desk massage therapy
• Walking meetings
• Wearable devices that sync with a mobile phone app (measuring steps, calories burned, distances, hours of activity)
• Social wellbeing team challenges and individual competitions
  • Promoting the connection between sleep, wellness and productivity by asking employees to track hours of sleep over a defined period of time; for a fun twist – award a “Rip Van Winkle” honorarium to the longest, deepest sleeper with the greatest improved output
• Nap pods
• Lego and board game stations
• Laundry service
• Education, sports and recreation programs taught by employees (kickboxing, mindfulness, painting, personal fitness training, nutritional cooking classes)
• Grocery vouchers
• Fee reimbursement for marathons, triathlons, races of all sorts
• Onsite organic gardening
• Adventure outings (canoeing, golf lessons, paintball, spa)
• Recess activity breaks
• Improv comedy training
• Laugh out loud lunch parties or coaching sessions (yes laughing coaches exist).

Regardless of your corporate culture, budget, or bandwidth for “out-there” creativity the best way to build healthy habits begins by soliciting employee input when deciding how and what to offer to make your employee wellness programs simply irresistible.

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Here are some reasons why overworking your employees negatively impacts engagement and as a result, decreases productivity.

No Time for Team Bonding

If your employees are essentially “chained” to their workstations all day, the chances are that they aren’t receiving the social engagement and stimulation from interacting with their coworkers that they need. An appropriate amount of time for socialization and a humanized approach to managing your employees will encourage healthier bonding, which can assist with problem-solving and workplace co-operation. In turn, this will improve employee engagement, which can increase workplace efficiency.

Lack of Employee Empowerment

When your employees are left to man their desk for the day without any encouragement or support, they may begin to feel as if they aren’t doing well enough or aren’t meeting your expectations. This can lead to a reduction in productivity with them inadvertently overworking themselves as a means to secure recognition for their efforts. Empowering employees can be achieved simply by stopping by to say hello, see how they’re doing, and provide a few words of encouragement. Never forget that your employees chose to work under your employment. They applied for the job, and they deserve the appropriate amount of respect. If they didn’t want to be there, chances are they wouldn’t be.

An Imbalance of Work and Home Life

It’s crucial that your employees have a healthy work-life balance every week. Otherwise, they’re easily susceptible to being overworked, frustrated, and negatively impacting productivity (not to mention, they may throw their hands in the air and look elsewhere for fairer employment). Be sure to respect the need for this balance by scheduling appropriate working hours to ensure your workers have a balanced amount of time at home. Additionally, you could try giving them the option to telecommute and/or have a flexible work schedule. It will only positively impact your business in the long run.

Unreasonable Stress Build-Up

When overworked, employees naturally accumulate stress, the levels of which can escalate to a near-boiling point (which essentially is a warning sign of them being about to snap). Along the way to the extreme limit of their stress meter, the more stress the build-up can negatively impact their performance in the workplace, affecting productivity. Always be willing to respectfully discuss their workload with them, and ensure that they aren’t taking on more than what is fair to them.

Being overworked is no fun, but it is also no easy problem to solve if your employer isn’t willing to accept your humanity and listen. Treat your employees the way you would want to be treated, and don’t forget to practice what you preach.

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What are employees saying?

The physical part of the wellness equation is really a cost measure; it really is the organization investing in people to keep them healthy so they can be more productive. It sounds mercantile, but ultimately that’s what the business case says. Anonymous comments collected by Talentmap point to the emotional ROI in terms of how people feel about workplace health and wellness programs.

“I think the introduction of 2 personal days and the wellness account are wonderful additions to the benefits of working here. It makes me feel appreciated.”

Counter views imply health and wellness programs should be part of a greater people strategy; other things need to be managed as well.

“Sometimes the messages we get about wellness seem contradictory. While they ‘say’ they want us to be healthy and well (which the programs do evidence), sometimes it’s hard to find the time during the day to act on wellness initiatives and not worry about missing deadlines or meetings with business partners.”

The reality behind employee engagement and wellness program links

The key question is whether gains in employee engagement can be tied to wellness programs (maybe) –  this is what you’re going to hear from plenty of vendors. But does research really bear that out?

TalentMap employee engagement survey studies find, yes, employees are more engaged – there is a link there – BUT they’re also rating work environment and non-cash rewards/perks more highly. Intuitively, wellness programs show employees their organization “cares.” But, employees are not necessarily more truly “engaged” solely due to wellness programs.  In other words – expected improvements in employee engagement do not materialize with the introduction of wellness programs. It’s much more complex than that.

Professional growth and development drives engagement. Organizational vision drives engagement. Leadership drives engagement. Innovation drives engagement. But dimensions that include a wellness program, the work environment, safety, work-life balance – those do not tend to be drivers of engagement. They tend to be taken for granted as nice to haves.  As such, the jury is still out regarding wellness programs alone directly improving employee engagement.

That said, wellness IS the right thing to do. Just don’t expect the employee engagement payoff. Expect showing you “care” is never a bad thing in the employee engagement context. And know not all people practices will necessarily improve employee engagement, however, improving health and wellness is positive: healthy employees are happier and more productive.

How to get started?  Follow these five steps:

1. Obtain commitment from senior management
2. Form a health and wellness committee
3. Determine the status of the situation; collect appropriate data and about your organization and do a diagnosis
4. Prepare and implement your plan with a focus on four spheres of intervention.

• Work environment: adequate computer equipment, workloads, facilities for workers (showers, kitchen appliances, stand-up desks)
• Work/life balance: flexible work schedules, remote work, leave for family obligations
• Management practices: internal communications, team activities, onboarding
• Lifestyle: promotion of physical activity and healthy diet, a gym culture (walking meetings for instance).
• Measure – measure – measure! Include a question or two specific to your wellness program in your employee engagement surveys. Evaluate the program implemented and make changes as needed.

Remember, while one of the anecdotes around work-life balance is implementation of wellness programs, often little if anything is done in the workplace to address cultural issues, the root causes of why people are stressing in the first place.  Root out those causes. Tend to your workplace health and wellness programs around those concerns, as a concerned and engaged organization, and reap the rewards of employee engagement as that nurturing people connection continues to flourish and grow.

The post Workplace Health and Wellness: The Profits of Prevention and Impact on Employee Engagement appeared first on TalentMap.

Every day 6,300 people die as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases – more than 2.3 million deaths per year. Roughly 317 million accidents occur on the job annually; many of these resulting in extended absences from work. The human cost of this daily adversity is enormous and the economic burden of poor occupational safety and health practices is estimated at 4% of global Gross Domestic Product each year.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, from April to July 2017, the number of employed youth 16 to 24 years old was 20.9 million. The most frequents type of injuries to these young workers include sprains, strains, and tears (more prevalent among young women) and cuts and lacerations (more prevalent among young men). While recent fatality statistics were unavailable, CFOI data indicate an average of 67 work-related deaths per year occurred among youths under 18 between 1992 to 1998.

Around the globe, 541 million young workers – which includes 37 million children in hazardous child labour – account for more than 15 per cent of the world’s labour force and suffer up to a 40% higher rate of non-fatal occupational injuries than adult workers older than 25.

On a micro level, occupational health and safety issues can be an organization’s greatest nightmare. Aside from serious employee relation issues and external reputational damage, work-related accidents affect:

• Productivity related to loss of output or production
• Medical costs
• Quality of life monetary valuations for pain and suffering
• Administrative costs associated with reporting a workplace accident and applying for social security payments or worker compensation
• Insurance premiums and compensation payments

Measuring the perceptions of full-time, part-time, contract and temporary summer employees is fundamental to building a safe workplace.  What this means is asking employees for predictive, “what-if” observations about certain safety-related behaviors in the workplace and how they (may or may not) impact safety outcomes.

Safety surveys, combined with action planning, send powerful messages underscoring workplace safety as a priority. The biggest success factors are galvanizing employee involvement and senior management commitment. The more employees and leadership engage in the safety process, the more safety outcomes and productivity will improve, and ultimately, numbers and severity of injuries will decline.

Join community leaders and other organizations promoting World Day for Safety and Health at Work this April 28.

• Speak out.
• Post web articles.
• Send tweets and emails.
• Takes steps to engage employees in the safety and health of your workplace.

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