What can be done to improve employee wellbeing?

What plays a crucial role in enhancing it?

These types of questions do tend to arise quite frequently in front of employers who wish to achieve a better work environment.

Firstly, let’s address the defining matters — what is implied when we talk about employee wellbeing? It is common to identify wellbeing in terms of physical health only, however a complete definition should include more factors. It consists of the dominant components of a great life — an individual’s experiences and perceptions of what is important, it is a representation of how somebody’s life is going. Gallup defines wellbeing using five core elements: career wellbeing, physical wellbeing, social wellbeing, financial wellbeing and community wellbeing. Employers can contribute to career, financial and social wellbeing of their employees, thus affecting the overall situation.

Why does it matter to focus on employee wellbeing? The research has shown that there is a strong positive correlation between employee wellbeing and employee productivity and retention; also, there is a negative correlation with employee turnover. Ultimately, higher wellbeing at work is positively correlated with more business-unitl level profitability. (Krekel, C., Ward, G. and De Neve, J.E., 2019) Moreover, higher social wellbeing strengthens community ties and contributes to stronger relationships between employees since they have the psychological and physical capacity to build a communication framework.

There are numerous ways in which an organization can impact its employees’ wellbeing. As was mentioned above, there are three major factors that can be influenced by an employer in order to boost it.

The first one is career wellbeing, it can be heightened by work redesign practices. Work redesign practices focus on increasing employee well-being by changing the task dimension of organizational contexts. Work redesign practices focus on increasing psychological engagement by enriching assigned tasks. (Grant, A.M., Christianson, M.K. and Price, R.H., 2007)

The second one is financial wellbeing. The PwC 2021 Employee Financial Well-being Survey has found finances to be the top cause of employee stress, says Forbes. What can be done here? Let us introduce the realm of incentive compensation. Incentive compensation practices focus on increasing employee well-being by changing the reward dimensions of organizational contexts. Incentive compensation practices are monetary and non-monetary benefits provided to employees in exchange for performance. (Grant, A.M., Christianson, M.K. and Price, R.H., 2007)

The third pillar is social wellbeing. Meaningful relationships is a key predictor of life satisfaction and happiness. “They can be a buffer during stressful situations. Downstream, they also impact the bottom line of an organization in terms of absenteeism, presenteeism, quality of work, and organizational loyalty,” says Jen Fisher, co-author of Work Better Together and Chief Well-Being officer for Deloitte. Thus it is detrimental to take into account the importance of social wellbeing and affect it through team-building practices. Team-building practices focus on improving interpersonal relations and cohesion at work in order to enhance employee performance. (Grant, A.M., Christianson, M.K. and Price, R.H., 2007)

Team-building practices can be implemented through our platform AlbiCoins, a complex solution that allows to combine peer-to-peer recognition with corporate incentives and benefits. The way it works is employees earn special currency (coins) for completing specific tasks; those coins, in turn, can be spent in the benefits cafeteria on any bonus they prefer. Among the others, there are tasks that enhance interpersonal communication and help build stronger employee community. They include team project assessment when a team project is presented on the platform and valued, rated and awarded by employees and others.

To sum up, employee wellbeing is crucial for an employer to take note of and pau attention to due to its effect on employee performance and community ties. However, there are plenty of ways in which an organization can improve the wellbeing of its workers, such as work redesign practices, incentive compensation pracices and team-building practices.

• Jeanne Meister The Future Of Work Is Employee Well-Being Forbes
• Grant, A.M., Christianson, M.K. and Price, R.H., 2007. Happiness, health, or relationships? Managerial practices and employee well-being tradeoffs.
  Academy of management perspectives, 21(3), pp.51-63.
• Krekel, C., Ward, G. and De Neve, J.E., 2019. Employee wellbeing, productivity, and firm performance. Saïd Business School WP, 4.
• Bakker, A.B., 2015. Towards a multilevel approach of employee well-being. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24(6), pp.839-843.