Employee Wellness programs for employees are now being adapted by a lot of companies because of its effectiveness which had its beginning as perks offered only by large corporations to their best employees. But now, these wellness programs are being provided to all employees not only in large companies but also in small sized businesses and is now a regular inclusion to company benefits package.
Wellness programs include incentives, social support and physical and mental well-being tools and strategies to ensure healthy behaviours and demeanours among employees.
It lowers health care costs
One of the obvious benefits of an effective employee wellness programs is that it lowers health care costs since the employees are healthier. When employees adopted a healthier lifestyle since they are educated on how to do that, they are motivated and the organization that they belong to support them to do so, it leads to lower health risks and they are less likely to develop any chronic disease which ultimately lowers your organization’s health care costs.
If your employees are less stressed, happy and satisfied with their personal and professional life, they are also less likely to have harmful vices such as smoking and drinking alcohol. All in all, they would be physically and mentally healthy.
It improves employees’ productivity
It’s easy to gauge whether your employees are being productive or not since you could have tangible KPIs or key performance indicators. But determining how you could improve your employees’ productivity when it is low might be more difficult. Absenteeism could be one indicator but the reason for this varies. It could be that the employee has some personal problems at home or that they are ill.
As an indicator, absenteeism is an obvious barometer that the employee is not being productive. On the other hand, presenteeism or being physically present but not working might be more difficult to gauge, unless the employees are required to submit their daily output at the end of the day (which is data that could still be manipulated).
Presenteeism could also be attributed to health problems because even if the employees have reported to work if they don’t have the energy to work, they are still less productive. When you have developed wellness programs for your employees that target promoting and developing good health behaviours, their worksite wellness would be positively immense.
It helps employee retention
Not all companies have developed wellness programs even if it is effective and since it is still not widely implemented, it could also be a reason for your employees to stay because they appreciate that you care for their well-being. Even if they receive a job offer from your competitor and with a slight increase in the salary they are receiving from your organization, they would still think twice about accepting the offer since you give them a worthy incentives and benefits plan.
Wellness programs also boost the employees’ morale and promote teamwork. When they participate in these programs, they are also given the chance to mingle with colleagues they don’t usually have business with.