How Employee Wellbeing Impacts Your Bottom Line

By Kimberly Kafafian

Wellbeing and wellness may often be used interchangeably, but there is a distinct difference between the two terms. While wellness focuses on one’s overall health, wellbeing encompasses much more than that to also include how one is doing from a mental, career, social, financial, physical, and community perspective. Smart business leaders are proactively promoting both wellness and wellbeing in the workplace. Why? Because they know each type of initiative can positively impact their bottom line in different ways. In a nutshell, how employees feel physically, mentally, and emotionally affects how the company performs.

Investing in Worker Wellbeing Is Simply Good for Business

Wellness programs and benefits help reduce the high costs associated with employee illness, such as rising healthcare expenses and absenteeism’s impact on overall production. Examples of effective initiatives include fitness activities, wellness challenges, stress management, weight management, and free healthy food. Taking a strategic approach by focusing on the types of programs your employees want or need is the best way to ensure your investment boosts the bottom line.

Demonstrating a keen interest in the overall wellbeing of your workforce provides for a different type of return on investment. These broader initiatives help to drive employee performance, creativity, and innovation – items critical to growth and success. According to Indeed’s US Work Wellbeing 2023 Report, companies with higher levels of employee wellbeing outperform the US stock market and greater employee wellbeing is tied to higher company valuation, higher return on assets, and greater profits. Happy employees are almost twice as likely to work more effectively, energetically, and creatively. 

How Do You Go About Promoting Wellbeing? 

By building a culture around drivers like:

• Energy
• Belonging
• Trust
• Accomplishment
• Inclusion
• Respect
• Fair Pay
• Flexibility
• Appreciation
• Support

Here are some employee wellbeing strategies to consider implementing.

• Train leaders to identify and understand employees’ daily struggles, be it work or home related, so they can provide support
• Adjust workflow based on employee feedback
• Don’t overwork employees, respect the need for downtime, including no emails or calls after hours
• Set goals to reduce stress and burnout while boosting wellbeing
• Foster a sense of belonging and acceptance
• Demonstrate appreciation so employees feel valued
• Be flexible, if possible, as to where and when employees work
• Invest in mentorship and employee development programs
• Encourage a work-life balance

With only 29% of employees reporting high wellbeing at work, focusing on these types of initiatives might not only improve the work output of your existing workforce but could provide you with a competitive recruiting advantage.