23 January 2019

Wellbeing in the workplace

Keeping your workforce motivated and healthy is worthy of investment as your workforce are ultimately your most important asset. For most businesses, investment in this area has been overlooked in recent years, but with a weakened economy and budgets stretched to breaking point, any reduction in costs is welcomed with open arms.

Businesses worldwide have started to recognise the importance of ensuring their staff are comfortable, happy and healthy. As well as representing the most effective way of ensuring positive outcomes in our lives, it could be argued that wellbeing is one of the goals of human endeavour. Ultimately, wellbeing at work is important for ourselves, our family, friends and fellow workers and is a vital component that allows us all to flourish in all aspects of life.

A small investment now can prevent absences and pay dividends to both your business and your employees as people.

Understanding the Benefits of Wellbeing at Work

We understand the concept of employee wellbeing, how important it is to businesses both large and small, and of course the importance to us as individuals and to our families. What is very often missing though is turning the concept into action.  In essence, employee wellbeing is simply keeping staff healthy, motivated and present at work, so that they carry out the duties they are paid to do, are productive and contribute to the profit of the company.

The reality though is that many businesses pay little attention to the health of their employees until something goes wrong and by then of course, by definition, they are not healthy/not present/not working and therefore neither productive nor contributing to the profit of the company. Indeed, they go from being a contributor to your profit to a detractor.

If you are a small or medium sized business (SME) this can be hugely detrimental and lead to many consequential problems, such as low morale and high employee turnover. In larger companies the absence of an employee is often absorbed but this too can lead to low staff morale (other employees may be resentful of having to cover another member of staff's work), increased employee numbers (staffing levels may take into account average absences) and a direct hit to your bottom line as staff costs are artificially inflated to anticipate absences.

Wellbeing at work is about self-preservation for both employers and employees.  We ensure that our premises, equipment, cars and technology etc are fully supported, either by insurance policies, maintenance contracts or guarantees.  Too few companies take the same view of their most valuable and expensive asset; their staff!

Add up the true cost of sickness absences, the cost of recruiting and training staff, the cost of lost production because productivity has dropped and the cost of the time spent by HR, supervisors and managers on staff personal and health issues.  Would investing a set amount each year per employee make sense now that you have those figures? We know that it does.

To have a happy, contented and healthy workforce is to have a productive, profitable and growing business.  Making your staff smile can only help you thrive.

Our partner Wellbeing People work with businesses and communities across the UK to improve physical and mental wellbeing at work, primarily through the use of their Interactive Health Kiosk and engagement tools; delivering onsite health screening, wellbeing activities and workshops with passion, knowledge and vision.

If you require more information contact BPIF Specialist Services on [email protected] or 01924 203335.