You’re attracting employees but are you retaining them?

Why investing in the long-term wellbeing of your employees will bring your company greater success

Familiar with the terms ‘employee wellbeing’, ‘flexible working’ and ‘company culture’? These are widely used phrases, commonly used in job adverts, aimed at attracting prospective employees to a company. On the surface, these perks are appealing and in keeping with modern ways of working, but the question is, do they really add value to the lives of your employees?

Rather than using ‘perks’ as ways of enticing prospective employees, forward-thinking companies are now looking at building long-term plans which support the development, retention and wellbeing of their employees.

Are your employees happy and engaged?

A strong company culture is formed as a result of a healthy and well-balanced workforce. If your employees are performing at their best, this will extend to your team and company. Research demonstrates that employee productivity and wellness come hand-in-hand, with those who feel happy and engaged at work showing higher levels of effort and achievement.

Putting the time and money into your employees’ health and wellness is an indirect investment into your business’ productivity, which is very likely to result in an increase in company performance. Neglecting the health and wellbeing of your employees is likely to result in them leaving the company for roles which offer them better growth and development opportunities. This can be costly as replacing these employees, particularly strong ones, results in time, resources and money being spent recruiting and training new staff members.

Wellbeing investment infographic stats Jan 2020

How to increase employee engagement and productivity

Investing in the wellbeing of your employees and your company culture doesn’t mean providing a fully stocked kitchen, table football and games console. Obviously, these are great additions to the workplace, but they won’t mean much to your employees if you haven’t also implemented robust cultural support systems.

Investing in your team’s growth and development, both in and outside of the workplace, is likely to substantially increase employee engagement and productivity. Supporting your employees in their growth and providing them with opportunities to extent this, will show them that they are valued and important to you, beyond the obligations of their role.

In order to create an environment focused on progress and development, consider providing your employees with continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities for both their job roles and for their lives outside of the workplace. Things that have worked well for successful companies include, for example, providing:

  • yoga classes – one per week with the objective of destressing and refocusing
  • online courses, workshops and conferences – with the objective of broadening networks, employees establishing themselves within the industry and becoming known as an ‘expert’
  • lunch and learn sessions e.g. with a financial consultant or life coach – with the aim of helping people achieve their goals in life

Companies that don’t look to implement the above are likely to experience more challenges and barriers when trying to achieve success and happiness. They will lack the support, guidance and teamwork required to overcome shifts in their environments and to successfully get to the other side.

Those providing their employees with new ways of thinking and behaving are those who are much more likely to proactively and effectively stay one step ahead, deal with changes to their business environment and to thrive.

Continuing learning, growth and development for you and your employees will empower you with the knowledge, ideas and methods to make new achievements, both professionally and personally.

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Jonathan has a natural talent for engaging with our students on a personal level and really understands how to stoke the fire in their bellies. The joy of this means he can get right on down to sharing the nitty gritty – the fundamental requirements for passion, graft, networking and solid community relations in order to succeed – safe in the knowledge that our students will hear his message and take his wisdom on board.

 

Sally Gibbs, Personal Tutor at the University of Leeds