Wellbeing Trends in the Workplace

Written by John Walters – Founder of Questae Collective

There is still a long way to go in creating a fair, equal, open, and easily accessible route to appropriate mental health support, and especially so we still have a long way to go in creating a culture that accepts mental ill health, and the conversation around the subject, as something that can and should be discussed openly and without fear of prejudice or alienation.

What is great to see, is that in the workplace many organisations, of all sizes, genres, and professions, are leading the revolution by taking care of their employees’ health and wellness from both a physical and mental point of view, guiding, leading, nourishing, and empowering their people to thrive and expand.

Yes, of course there are those organisations that talk a good talk, but the reality is they’re just ticking a few boxes for the sake of a good story, or positive PR, but they are being found out and called out by their employees who are experiencing little, poor or no real support. All we can hope, is that these organisations wake up and truly get involved in creating positive workplaces with proper, and appropriate support for all their humans top to bottom.

The statistics are there to be seen, in a study caried out by Deloitte in May 2024, they found that poor mental health costs UK employers up to £51 billion each year, a decrease from £55bn in 2021, but an increase from £45bn in 2019.

However, the research also reported that employers who have invested in their people’s wellbeing are getting incredible returns. On average, for every £1 spent on supporting their people’s wellness and mental health, employers get £4.70 back on their investment in reduced presenteeism, absenteeism, staff turnover, productivity, creativity and so much more.

I mean, it’s common sense right that happy, healthy, engaged, trusted, and empowered employees are going to bring to bear the greatest results!

So what are these organisations actually doing to support their people’s wellness and wellbeing?

• Buy-in and support from the Executive Leadership team, Management, and all Departmental heads, backed up with inclusion, effective communication, support, the budget, and desire to deliver.

• Measuring and indexing wellness with relatable, easily understood data – how can you measure success if you don’t know where youre starting from?

• Managing and effectively communicating with staff, and creating engaging, sustainable wellbeing programmes that are tailored specifically to their organisational needs.

• Training leadership and management to support them in their understanding of wellness and mental health such as mental health training, how to identify the signs of struggle or burnout, intervention, and how to check in with their staff and signpost, and of course how to ensure they are maintaining their own wellbeing.

• Ensuring communication between teams, departments and colleagues is maintained by arranging social activities or challenges such as couch to 5k, daily step counts, book, or film clubs, sharing recipes (and results), pet stories, group coffee breaks etc…

• Establishing volunteer roles such as Mental Health First Aiders, Wellbeing Ambassadors, providing these people with tools and resources to effectively carry out these roles, and then effectively communicating to the entire organisation who these people are, and how to get in touch with them.

• Guiding and educating staff on what is wellness covering subjects such as Nutrition, Sleep, Stress, Movement, Ergonomics, Mental Resilience, Women’s and Men’s Health at Work, and others through regular workshops and/or webinars.

• Understand, and acknowledge the different needs for different people and how the places from which they carry out their work impacts them. Many home-based workers have no dedicated space to work from at all. Therefore, the societal, physical, and mental impact from this should be strongly considered and factored into any wellness strategy.

When it comes down to overall wellness and wellbeing, many organisations are now taking the subject incredibly seriously and their understanding of the various elements making up wellness are being understood. Mental Health is still very much on the top of the agenda followed by Intellectual Wellbeing, Physical Wellbeing, Emotional Wellbeing, Social Wellbeing, and Financial Wellbeing.

But one thing is for certain, and that is organisations that are investing in the wellbeing of people, respecting and acknowledging them, helping them, and then supporting their needs to face the challenges they face with the ever-changing world, that is where the employees are happiest, more engaged, more productive, connected and want to be.

If you have read this and you would like to know more, or if you would like to find out how we can assist, guide, and implement a Wellbeing programme tailored specifically for your organisation, then please do get in touch 😊