Did you know this can improve employee engagement?

Employee engagement has been a long-running buzzword for the performance-minded employer.

Studies show that employees who are more engaged at work not only report higher job satisfaction — their performance becomes more than just satisfactory. Highly engaged employees are more focused, feel greater responsibility to the brand, and contribute more to company culture. Engagement ranks as one of the top qualities of a high functioning team.

But while we know that engagement equals a positive result for your business, not everyone knows that employee wellness equates to their engagement in the first place.

For a long time, wellness was seen as the responsibility of the employee. It was their duty to make sure they were mentally and physically fit to work their job. And to some extent, that is true — we need to practice self-care in order to care about other things like our work.

But many workers today feel that their employer plays a significant role in helping them to attain and maintain their state of wellness. And they’re not wrong.

So if you feel a responsibility to your business, in terms of keeping your team performing their best, then you should take responsibility to ensure that they can.

In today’s article, we’re exploring 3 reasons why improving employee wellness leads to improving employee engagement, so that you can ensure the wellness of your staff AND your business!

1. Work-Life Balance Is Worth More To Talent Than Ever

When you make wellness a priority, you not only improve life for your current employees, but also attract new talent.

This is because one of the most sought-after aspects of an ideal job, according to job seekers today, is work-life flexibility. The ability to balance their commitments both inside and outside of work is one of the top criteria that a job seeker is looking for in any employer.

In fact, one study by Glassdoor discovered that 87% of employees fully expect their employer to support them in balancing work and personal commitments. They also found out what workers said are the 3 most important ways to promote a healthy work-life balance:

Reduced working hours (30% said this was most important)
More paid time off (30% said this was most important)
A supportive & understanding manager (26% said this was most important)

It’s also more important than ever to respect employee boundaries when it comes to off-hours, now that many jobs are remote and team members are instantly accessible through the internet or by phone. Flexible schedules also provide employees a reasonable amount of freedom when it comes to scheduling themselves around personal commitments.

2. More Stress Means Less Productivity

And one of the greatest stressors in our lives is work.

Quantum Workplace surveyed workers only to discover that 16% reported that work negatively affected their sleep schedule regularly. 25% said that after a typical day of work, they felt physically drained or exhausted, while another 25% said the same thing — only about feeling emotionally drained.

Another study by Burnout Nation reported a whopping 76% of workers experiencing symptoms of burnout.

Understanding your employees’ limits isn’t important just so you can stay within them. Learning how to help them manage stress is key to setting higher limits on what your business can achieve.

And according to research by Aflac, it’s also important to your employees. 61% of millennials reported that they actually did make healthier lifestyle choices thanks to their company’s wellness program. Meanwhile, every demographic is factoring in wellness benefits when they decide whether to take or stay at a job.

3. Wellness Affects Absenteeism

If you ate some food that made you sick, you’d probably be hesitant to eat it again, right?

Well in a parallel way, the more people see their job as a source of stress and bad health, the more hesitant they’ll be to show up in full spirits each and every day.

Absenteeism costs your business big time. Not only does it come with administrative work, like finding new staff members to cover a missed shift, but it costs your business on the bottomline.

Absenteeism costs Canadian employers a collective $16.6 billion dollars annually. On average, 500,000 workers take time away from work every week for mental health reasons.

Stress from work causes 1 in 4 employees to quit — leaving you strapped for talent and having to pay to onboard a new employee. And one of the early detection signs you can see is patterns of absenteeism.

It’s clear that if wellness programs can help you hold on to your best workers, as well as nip absenteeism in the bud, then it should be as big a priority for you as plugging a leak in your boat.

Conclusion

Life is stressful. You can’t take away all the things that can put a burden on your employees, physically and emotionally.

But you CAN make every effort to help them manage that stress, by introducing health and wellness initiatives that positively impact their lives.

And when you do, you’ll be managing your business in a way that just makes sense.

Did you know this can improve employee engagement?