A recent survey The Wellness Crew conducted led to some interesting and thought-provoking insights into how things have really changed in the ‘workplace’!?!
A fundamental piece of each employee wellbeing programme is to measure. It is crucial that we gain an understanding of the employees’ sentiment directly instead of assuming or indeed deciding on this ourselves as wellness leads, HR or management. Employees will often feel overwhelmed or concerned and not communicate that with each other or with their manager, so we need to measure our workforces directly.
A client organisation we measured during 2020 noted that the communication of their wellness supports was often lost in the myriad of Zoom, Instant messages and emails.
They knew immediately that it was not the programme itself that was the missing piece of the jigsaw, it was how it was communicated that needed more thought.
On an individual level, employees reported struggling to communicate effectively with each other given that the dynamic of the workplace had changed so much. Messages were often misunderstood or misrepresented which often led to distraction and reduced trust and effectiveness while working remotely.
While we know that companies the world over want to support their employees the missing link is not in the efforts to educate employees to make better, healthier decisions, but in how they are communicating their message.
Unifying the wellness message centrally is key. Absolutely each company will want to support their employees across Mind, Money, Fit and Food, but if these attempts are controlled messages then the effectiveness of that company’s efforts have been shown to be significantly reduced.
We suggest that your Communications be singularly messaged. Don’t have 4 pillars run by 4 different partners. The style of delivery, the brand, the message, the promotion. These elements of a programme are as important to the success of a programme as the message itself. We absolutely need to have high quality pillars of education within each programme but if employees don’t engage it becomes utterly useless!
Since March 2020, The Wellness Crew along with its client organisations have really pushed the boundaries when it came to trying new and often hilarious ways to engage, connect and communicate a supportive message to their remote working employees. From online games to fitness classes to cooking demos online over zoom and teams, from meditation classes and webinars on adapting to change to financial education sessions delivering virtually on a group and 1 -1 basis. Some of our clients did magic shows and comedy nights even! Engagement increased, sentiment improved, and each employers’ efforts were recognised and appreciated.
The Wellness Crew know it is important that employees have fun together. We encourage our clients to foster this, and it’s paid off by higher engagement with their employees during these challenging times. I believe it now more important than ever that we all keep this attitude and be bolder when we are designing wellness programs in the future.
The Wellness Crew are all about the human touch, but we had to pivot like everyone else and we are delighted we were able to maintain the human touch through a digital delivery. What our measurement surveys really pointed to was that employers now know the program that we designed together was heavily influenced by the employees themselves.
One client said…
‘What I have learned personally this year is that it is important to trust people when they are working from home. It became important to be more positive with our communication style. We now know that supporting our people is the most important factor to improving our culture and the well-being of our employees, so they feel included even if they are not physically at their desk in-house’.
The importance of team collaboration and actually spending quality time with your team is more important now- WFH or not. Your Wellness Program must be consistent, it needs to be communicated often. It must include everyone. But most important it must be messaged centrally in a fun and engaging way.
About the author : Aine Ryan
