Now that operations are beginning to normalize, HR professionals are beginning to revisit what ongoing wellbeing provision should look like. With this comes a unique blend of opportunities and challenges for employers to navigate as they support the wellbeing and health of their employees.
Tictrac recently partnered with Global HR Executive to provide a forum for HR Leaders to come together to share strategies, experiences and solutions for improving workplace culture around wellbeing.
Over 11 leadership priorities were explored on the day, which you can read about in the ‘Winning wellness strategies for the workforce of tomorrow’ report. These included 3 areas of opportunity which have been summarised below.
Reimagining the benefits value proposition
There seems to be a real recognition, as we come out of the pandemic, that now is the time to revisit the provision of wellbeing benefits and what the benefits are designed to do. From both an organisational and employee perspective, there are a couple of factors driving the shift:
- Businesses have changed – they are leaner, operationally reconstructed for a mobile/hybrid world with a hunger for global talent
- Employees have changed – some are remote, hybrid, others looking for new work patterns around different lifestyle ambitions
Organisations now appear to be looking for wellbeing benefits that are much more than a perk. Wellbeing benefit selection criteria appear to vary across companies and include such factors as:
- Acting as a tool for talent acquisition
- Demonstrate genuine value to employees
- Add value to the business, for example by improving productivity or minimising absenteeism
- Ideally, they should also represent the values of the business
Moving beyond the universal offer
There was an agreement that for most employers, the fundamental principles of wellbeing provision have changed.
Where one universal offer was previously the objective in order to be seen to be fair to all employees, equality and fairness can also come from relevance: something for everyone based on:
- Life stage
- Location
- Work style
- Occupation and more…
This therefore opens up the possibility of establishing a “wellbeing allowance” as a component of the benefits scheme. The allowance democratises wellbeing, putting power in the hands of the employee.
Taking a nuanced approach when scaling up wellbeing initiatives
Beyond business as usual, there are many additional priorities including:
- Understanding regional impacts
HR Professionals in global organisations have always had to deal with the difference in expectations in different territories. Remuneration, cultural norms and work patterns have always been challenging. But the disparity now is greater than ever. How can benefits packages be designed to cater for all needs, fairly?
- Going mobile
From the recent HR Leaders Exchange there is consensus that the employee expectation is to be able to access wellbeing benefits on mobiles by default
- Tech in general
Overall, the delivery of benefits fits into a broader roadmap of HR digital transformation including global patterns for HR, security, home working and more. All of which needs to be designed and integrated to remain effective and usable.
To conclude, it is fair to say that employers are at an inflection point in terms of embedding a culture of wellbeing that works both at an individual and organisational level.
The ‘Winning wellness strategies for the workforce of tomorrow’ report shares further insights, real life examples and ideas on wider priorities such as: financial wellbeing in light of the cost of living crisis, making the most out of data or again navigating legacy offers. You can access a copy of the report here.
