If you’re not sure how your employees are faring when it comes to wellbeing, it’s time to take action.
Few things impact morale, productivity or engagement more than the health of your workers, and after the unparalleled pressures of the past year, understanding just how ‘well’ your workforce is has never been more important.
But what factors should you be looking at, and where do you even start?
A framework for better wellbeing
You can’t measure wellness without something to measure against.
Understanding employee wellbeing relies on knowing what makes people thrive – which is where our six pillar methodology comes into play. Backed by pioneering research into mental health and wellbeing, BetterSpace’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Iain Jordan, champions the six-pillar approach to better wellbeing, which focuses on fulfilling the lifestyle factors that impact our mental health.
- Sleep: Nothing impacts our wellbeing quite like a good night’s sleep. If your employees aren’t sleeping well, they won’t be able to bring their best selves to work.
- Nutrition: Everything that we put into our bodies has an effect on the way we think and feel. The right nutrition will give your people energy, vigour, and far better focus.
- Meaningful activity: Having a hobby makes you less likely to suffer with low mood and depression. Work can’t be the only thing in the lives of your teams.
- Stress management: High stress levels are seriously bad for our health. When your workers are overly stressed, they’re more likely to need time off, and less likely to give their best.
- Exercise: Getting our bodies moving more is one of the best ways to boost wellbeing. When your people work out regularly, their focus, energy and self-esteem will increase.
- Community: Socialising does wonders for our wellbeing; as does helping others. If your employees have a good sense of community, they’re more likely to thrive.
Having a focused framework to measure against allows you to see just how well your people are coping with the everyday challenges of life, and where they might need some support. But before you can action anything, you need to know your baseline.
Understanding your baseline
The first stage of any wellbeing initiative has to be establishing a baseline. If you don’t understand where your employees sit on the wellbeing spectrum, you won’t know where to make improvements, or be able to measure the impact of your investment.
If you’re going it alone, you might choose to develop an in-depth survey to send out across your organisation, ready to analyse the differing stats throughout your teams. It’s really important to ask the right questions here, and to know what you’re looking for in the results – which is why partnering with a wellbeing provider like BetterSpace can be far simpler, and yield better results.
We always start by carrying out an assessment – across a company’s entire workforce – against our six pillar methodology. And because people get their own assessment delivered back to them, they can see for themselves where their wellbeing might be taking a hit. And that’s really important.
You want to empower your people with the knowledge, and the resources, to prevent poor mental health and achieve optimum levels of wellness.
A science-backed formula for better wellbeing
Putting a process in place that allows you to measure wellbeing over time is essential for keeping your organisation on track.
Consistently monitoring the wellness levels of your workforce helps to create a real culture change, because it’s always front of mind. You have a clear insight into how stressed your people are, whether they’re feeling connected and fulfilled, if they’re sleeping poorly, or if exercise or nutrition might be bringing them down.
BetterSpace is a whole platform dedicated to giving people what they need on an individual level, but the change in perspective and approach from an organisational level also leads to that all-important culture shift. Everyone is a little more focused on what’s good for them; people are sharing which resources have improved their mental health; leaders are talking far more freely about the value of taking responsibility for your personal wellbeing – and supporting people to do precisely that.
Understanding the wellbeing of your organisation takes commitment, trust, and a very clear plan; improving the wellbeing of your organisation takes an expert.
Find out more about how BetterSpace can help your people to thrive by getting in touch with our incredibly friendly team, or booking a demo, today.