The Best Wellbeing Boosting Benefits To Offer Staff
Research shows that the value of promoting the wellbeing of your staff in the workplace is clear. Indeed it can drastically reduce your operating costs, specifically saving money when it comes to employee absence and recruitment. Not to mention the benefits it can have on morale, motivation, and productivity. The good news is that there are many things you can do to boost employee wellbeing in the workplace. Read about the best options below.
Private healthcare - inc optical and dental insurance
In the UK, we are lucky enough to have universal healthcare in the form of the NHS. However, it is possible to reap many rewards by offering your employees (and in some cases, their families) private healthcare coverage.
In particular, the speed at which cases are seen and treated in the private healthcare sector is seen as a major advantage by most people. Of course, the sooner issues are diagnosed and treated, the sooner your employee can recover and can get back to work, too.
Optical and dental insurances are also an important part of the wellbeing benefits you can offer to your staff. Indeed, both dental work and glasses or contact lenses can be very expensive, and to have these covered by private insurance can be hugely motivating for those that work for you.
Additionally, many dental and optician practices, both in real life and online, will take insurance towards payment of their services. Indeed, if your employees are looking for stylish glasses and already have their prescriptions, they can shop here easily from home. Then expect the fast delivery on a massive range of fashionable frames that will be the toast of the office.
Mental health provision
A major change is occurring concerning mental health. What was once covered up is now becoming much more open, and those who struggle with difficulties such as anxiety, depression, OCD, GAD, and BPD are much more freely able to disclose their disorders and seek help.
However, your employees do not have to have a condition like those listed above that requires lifelong management to benefit from mental health provision. Indeed nearly everyone struggles with mental health at some point in their life, often due to stress or other life events. This means that you can have a huge positive impact on your staff's wellbeing by offering them free or subsidized mental health provision. Some firms choose to do this with an in-house counselor. In contrast, others prefer to outsource this to professionals working outside of their business.
The benefits of mental health provision to the employee are that they can be heard and have their struggles acknowledged, seek diagnosis and treatment, and be exposed to techniques and medications that can significantly improve the way they live their lives.
The benefits to a business of providing mental health help in this way can be a reduction in stress on both the individual and those working around them. It is also more likely that said individual will be able to cope with the job's demands adequately and won't go off sick or leave the company for another position.
Finally, as many therapies, including CBT, teach individuals how to better deal with their inner emotional experience and interpersonally with others around them, they can become far happier and more productive in their work.
Gym membership
Another smart well being based benefits to offer your employees is a free or discounted gym membership. The main advantage of this is that membership can save employees a significant amount of money each month. Additionally, it allows them to work on their fitness goals and work out any stress that can directly impact their happiness.
On the plus side for the business providing the membership, workers with a higher level of physical fitness are known to take less time off work with illness or stress. Additionally, some employees may use the gym as a bonding experience, something that can help to forge better interactions within and between teams.
The great thing about offering gym memberships as a wellbeing benefit to your employees is that you can usually get a company discount. That is, because you are buying in bulk for your whole business, you will not have to pay the full individual price for each person that joins. Something that can help save your business money will, at the same time, allow you to offer something of real value to your employees.
Meal boxes and healthy snacking
They say we are what we eat! Unfortunately, that means if your company's canteen is filled with fry-ups, chips, and chocolate bars, your staff may not be as healthy or as energetic as you would like.
The good news is that you can make a difference here by offering healthier food options. One way of doing this is to eliminate the vending machines that stock crisps, biscuits, and chocolate and replace them with free access to healthy snacks instead. Think unsalted nuts, dried fruits, fresh fruits, and nut butters. Oh, and instead of providing instant coffee, what about a fridge with chilled water and some herbal tea bags?
Of course, if you want your employees to feel extra special, you may pay for a healthier snack subscription box or two to be delivered to the office. The company Graze currently leads this market and provides postal boxes or multi-packs jammed full of delicious treats like pretzels and dips that can be customized to your employees' liking.
Indeed, you may wish to take this idea one step further and offer meal box kits at a discounted rate to your employees. The benefits of subscription meal boxes that they make choosing healthier options easy. They also remove the need for employees to worry about food and meal planning and shopping. Something that many busy employees will see as a real bonus!
Flexible and remote working
Time is also another important consideration for employee wellbeing, helping them achieve a good work-life balance. With that in mind, it can help offer flexible hours and alternative ways of operating, such as remote working to your staff.
In particular, flexible hours can be helpful because they allow your employees to set their own schedule within reason. This means that they can do other things they value in the week, from heading to the gym each day to watching their child's school play or even leaving early on a Friday.
Remote working has several benefits associated with it, as well. Not least, your staff won't have to deal with a long, stressful, or expensive commute. Once again, something can positively affect their lives and tip the scales firmly in favor of motivation at work and loyalty to your organisation.
Meditation, yoga, and naps during the workday
Meditation, yoga, and even naps in the workday may all sound a bit woo woo. However, the final benefit you may wish to offer employees is breaks through the day for mindful activities. Indeed there's a great swathe of literature and evidence-based research that shows mindful practices have all sorts of benefits, including increased calm, reduced stress, and a boost in mood.
Of course, you can go the whole hog if you like and take a leaf out of Google's book and provide safe and secure napping spaces for your employees at work. Something that will allow those that work for you a little respite from the chaos of the day. Not to mention, help them feel better and more easily refocus their energies on the important tasks that need to be done in your business that day.
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