Have you ever wondered why some companies thrive while others struggle to survive? It's all about the people behind the scenes - the employees. Without a happy and productive workforce, a company cannot achieve its goals or maintain its competitive edge.
That's why it's essential for companies to look after their staff. But exactly how do companies take care of their employees? It starts with a technical approach. By assessing what makes their employees happy, how to support them in their role, and whether they feel heard.
By doing so, companies can create a workplace where employees feel valued and motivated to contribute to the success of the business.
Let’s dive deeper into how companies can take care of their employees and create a thriving workplace culture. Because when employees feel valued and appreciated, they are more likely to go the extra mile and help the business succeed.
Why Should Companies Take Care Of Their Employees?
Caring for your employees is essential because they are the backbone of any successful business. Without a happy and productive workforce, companies cannot achieve their goals or maintain their competitive edge.
Firstly, taking care of employees leads to higher levels of job satisfaction, which in turn leads to greater productivity and a lower employee turnover rate. When employees feel valued and appreciated, they are more likely to be engaged in their work, be committed to the company, and remain loyal to their employer.
This results in a more stable and motivated workforce, which can help companies weather economic downturns or other challenges.
Secondly, a strong employee care program can help companies attract and retain top talent. In today's competitive job market, employees have more options than ever before, and companies need to offer more than just a paycheck to attract and retain the best workers.
Offering employee benefits such as health insurance, paid time off, and opportunities for professional development can make a company stand out as an employer of choice.
Thirdly, taking care of employees is simply the right thing to do. Companies have a responsibility to provide a safe and healthy work environment, as well as to treat their employees fairly and respectfully. When employees feel that their employer cares about them as individuals, they are more likely to feel valued and respected, leading to higher levels of job satisfaction and employee engagement.
Taking care of employees is not just a nice thing to do, it is essential for the success of any business. Companies that invest in their employees through employee care programs will benefit from a more productive, motivated, and loyal workforce, and will be better positioned to attract and retain top talent in a competitive job market.
So, if companies want to achieve long-term success and profitability, they must prioritize the well-being and happiness of their employees.
How Do Companies Take Care Of Their Employees?
1. Focus on preventive care: a journey from illness to wellness
As per the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), 6 in 10 people have one chronic health condition, and 1 in 4 adults has two or more chronic health conditions. These chronic conditions and diseases include arthritis, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, etc. Not only do these conditions slow down a workforce, but they’re also extremely costly too.
The solution to delivering projects on deadlines as well as helping employees effectively manage illnesses is simpler than you think: preventive care.
If everyone receives the recommended preventive care, it can save over 100,000 lives yearly!
The good news is that the power of prevention helps you live a healthier lifestyle to combat these risks. The bad news is that several adults don’t pay attention to preventive behaviors to help lower their risk for these diseases.
What’s the solution?
The answer is developing a workplace wellness program that focuses on prevention.
Through your group health insurance plan with Loop, preventive service is a free and easy way for your employees to get answers to their health questions and complete lab tests with services received from an in-house provider.
Employees just need to log in to the Loop app and schedule their appointment. They have the support of a dedicated medical advisor to help in their everyday healthcare journey. They’re available on chat 24X7 and reply nearly as quickly as chatbot!
For more serious concerns, you can schedule a virtual appointment with specialist doctors who will help you solve any issues. Without stepping out of your home or standing in queues, you have expert help from a medical practitioner who’s like your family doctor!
Along with this, Loop has plans that include wellness sessions. These sessions include incentives to help employees remain productive by improving good health behavior, managing stress, reducing weight and improving fitness, and regulating blood pressure, cholesterol, and glucose, just to name a few.
Encouraging preventive services will educate employees on how to reduce their risk for these serious health problems before it’s too late. It also keeps your employees happy, healthy, and productive when they are in the office — helping move your business forward.
Let’s not forget, it helps reduce costs too! In the long term, a comprehensive approach to wellness produces a compounded effect of better health, vitality, productivity, and longevity.
With the help of preventive healthcare, organizations can promise good health to their workforce and in return get highly productive employees. After all, healthy employees make a healthy business!
2. Encourage a sensible work-life balance
Mohadeseh Ganji, the recipient of the Women Leading Tech Award for Data Science in 2020, was aware of the nature of her job - spending a lot of time in front of the computer.
To counter being continually indoors, she makes an effort to visit the outdoors often, even if it’s for a short time. She sets boundaries around her working hours and makes time for getting out. Admittedly, sometimes she cannot maintain these boundaries, but she is aware of this and is always actively working to reinforce them.
Over the past 20 years, the nature of work has changed. It’s not easy anymore to simply leave work behind when you clock out. During weekends and days off, people are more likely to take work home or check emails. With work blending into personal life, burnout, and stress, it’s crucial to have a good work-life balance plus. Not just for employees, but it’s beneficial to employers too.
When employees feel like their life outside of work is fulfilling, it shows in their work. They don’t think of work as a ‘necessary evil’ that they have to ‘put up with’ and are instead satisfied with their role and work. This improves employee productivity and boosts the organization's bottom line.
A company that encourages a healthy work-life balance naturally becomes an attractive place to work, especially in the post ‘lockdown’ world. A positive work environment not only attracts new talent but also helps retain the good ones.
One common and popular method that employers are utilizing to achieve work-life balance is flexible work schedules. Rather than a strict 9 am to 5 pm workday, offer flexible working hours - perhaps 7 am to 3 pm or 10 am to 6 pm.
Some argue that merely shifting time schedules doesn’t address a deeper need for quality time. There’s a way to make this work - by utilizing the hours you have productively so your mind doesn’t wander when you’re away.
3. Emphasize mental health
Recently, Blind, an anonymous community app for the workplace, conducted a study on burnout. Some well-known organizations ranked in the top 10 positions with the highest burnout - Expedia at number four, Oracle at six, Snapchat at eight, and Cisco at ten. Yahoo, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google, and Apple were somewhere in the middle. The one with the least burnout was Netflix!
Here is what five Indian employers are doing to improve employee workplace mental health:
- ‘Bacardi Assist,’ a free counseling program that connects individuals to mental health professionals. - Sanjit Singh Randhawa, Managing Director, Bacardi India
- ‘PepFit,’ aims to ensure the mental well-being of its employees through self-awareness, self-assessment, and self-care interventions. - Pavitra Singh, CHRO, PepsiCo
- #SelfCare - A day for employees to take the day off to recalibrate and rest. - Amit Prakash, CHRO, Marico Limited
- 'Lead by example,’ where CEO and senior leaders communicate often through various channels across all levels of the organization. - Piyush Mehta, Chief HR Officer, Genpact
- 'Engage, understand, and support staff,’ where consultations take place with therapists and experts. Yuvaraj Srivastava, Group CHRO, MakeMyTrip
Ultimately, there are times when everyone feels spread thin or overwhelmed. However, when repeated stress pushes you to a state of complete fatigue we call burnout, it’s a significant issue. This affects both well-being and performance, in the workplace and personally.
Before it gets out of hand for your organization, take matters into your hands with an employee burnout survey and nip any issues in the bud.
Understanding the Employee Burnout Survey
Such surveys are designed to gauge and identify burnout, along with any sentiments or occurrences that may lead to it. HRs and employers can use the insights to harbor positive change among team members.
How to Set Up an Employee Burnout Survey
Identifying the cause of burnout is important. An employee survey can be valuable in identifying the issues, but you will need to ask the right questions and be ready to act on them. Make sure you collect information that you know you will act on.
Some questions to get you started are:
- Have you ever experienced burnout in this job?
- Have you ever come upon any stress in this job?
- How often do you experience stress on the job?
- What is/are the most stressful aspect(s) of your position/ working at [company name]?
- What can we do to help you diminish employee burnout?
- What can we do to help you feel happier at work?
- Have you ever taken a sick day due to employee burnout?
- How many days have you worked during after-hours or off days because you could not finish during work hours?
- What can we do to help you feel happier at work?
When you prioritize mental health, of course, you get to avoid any undesirable results but it’s more about giving your staff the chance to be better versions of themselves. Ensure you communicate to your workforce that while your focus is reducing burnout, it’s also improving overall well-being. You want employees who perform well, thrive, and feel good both inside and out!
4. Leverage the benefits of group wellness activities
Google has answers to every one of your questions, including workplace wellness!
There’s a page on Google’s career site called “How We Care for Googlers.” It’s a textbook for effective employee well-being. We’re highlighting it here because just like wellness activities, they may not have an on-site yoga teacher, but everything they offer covers nearly all aspects of well-being - health, fitness, fulfillment, and a very good work/life balance.
When it comes to family, Google gives its employees retirement savings plans, generous parental leave policies, etc. to ensure they can spend as much time with their families.
Coming to healthcare, in the office, they serve nutritious and healthy meals. Besides this, to keep spirits up, every space is bright and full of natural light. There are also on-site gyms and a few locations even offer services like a chiropractor and a masseuse.
While all this looks amazing, a simple step in the right direction for your organization is wellness activities. As narrated earlier, akin to Google’s offering, wellness activities will target multiple facts of well-being like physical, financial, social, mental, etc.
A team that works well together is more effective, more productive, and more successful — not to mention happier and more fun to work with!
Wellness activities should not feel like a chore. It can also be fun. Events like group classes are excellent opportunities for employees to get to know each other better and form stronger bonds.
How do you bring wellness into the workplace?
The easiest way to bring wellness activities to your workplace is via an external source. This will not only lift the workload off your shoulder but also ensure you have a panel of experts who know what they’re doing. Maybe you can share your insights from the mental health survey so you can tailor-make sessions according to your findings.
Action plan to implement a workplace wellness program:
Step 1: Survey your organization's needs
Step 2: Establish a budget
Step 3: Analyze the different providers and the employee benefits offered
Step 4: Match your needs with the offerings provided
Step 5: Negotiate the best price
Step 6: Implement the workplace wellness program
Step 7: Track the program and optimize for the best results
Partnering with a health benefits provider like Loop gives you the dual advantage of group health insurance along with added health benefits, including wellness activities, at no extra cost.
Your employees can enjoy sessions with industry experts on a variety of topics. From sessions on heart attack to sleep cycles to intermittent fasting to women’s health like PCOD to dealing with FOMO to coping with procrastination to your own happiness, the numerous sessions spread throughout the month cater to various aspects of well-being.
Be An Organization That Shows Your Employees You Care
Taking care of employees is a critical aspect of running a successful business. It's not just about offering competitive salaries and benefits, but also creating a positive work culture that prioritizes employee well-being, work-life balance, and professional growth.
When employees feel valued and supported, they are more likely to be engaged, productive, and committed to achieving the company's goals.
So, as a company leader or manager, it's essential to prioritize your employees' needs and invest in their development. By doing so, you can create a workplace where everyone thrives and achieves their full potential.
