02. Employee Wellbeing Categories

"Researches and analyses have identified multiple categories of employee well-being. The types of these wellbeing support the determining various kinds of benefits that can be offered to employees in order to approach employee wellbeing and to optimize the health of all the employees. There are three main categories of Employee Wellbeing, namely; financial, mental and physical wellbeing are discussed in this article."

Financial Wellbeing    

Even though the monetary rewards of a particular company are prepared based on the job description and educational/professional qualifications, every employee should be given a fair and enough monetary rewards in order to give them a sense of financial security. It is not only the responsibility of the employer to improve the financial wellbeing of the employees but also the government, overall financial system of the country and employee himself are responsible for it. The elements of a workplace financial wellbeing package includes are livable wage, other monetary rewards as overtime, medical claims, savings for the future and retirement plans, managing debts, offering benefits to support living and improving financial literacy. If employees are more alert to the possibility of financial scams when making decisions about their own money, they may also become more alert when making decisions with their employer’s money which finally benefits the organization by improving productivity, innovation and financial security of the stakeholders.

To create a good financial wellbeing employer need to identify the opportunity of having a good workplace financial wellness. Then they should create a workplace financial wellbeing strategy aligning their business strategy, a policy and a dedicated budget in order to have a meaningful work and fair pay. There are lot of things that an employer can do at the strategic level and the policy level to create a good financial wellbeing at their workplace.

Things to create a good financial wellbeing at strategic level

1. Boosting employee productivity by reviewing the aligning of the business goals and the employee goals in order to ease high employee performance and commitment. This will finally leads to the high company profits allowing chances to provide more financial benefits.
2. The management should show its commitment by discussing the financial health of employees on a regular basis through promoting new initiatives to employees, talking about the financial situation facing the organization and encouraging people to be open about their financial concerns. 
3. Employee financial wellbeing initiatives should be supported by employee wellbeing programmes in order to integrate employee financial wellbeing initiatives into broader wellbeing initiatives. This may include providing knowledge on financial literacy and debt counseling

Things to create a good financial wellbeing at policy level

  i.    Using the Real Living Wage as a benchmark when setting pay to ensure that the lowest paid earns enough for a decent standard of living. This policy should clearly state the minimum number of working hours, the payment pattern and also the payment plan for extra working hours

 ii.    Providing benefits helping to extend the purchasing power of the employees’ wage. As an example providing loans for season tickets in order to cut their transport costs, paid bereavement leave in case of a death,  occupational sick pay in case of an illness.

iii.    Being open and transparent with employees about the pay and benefits on offer, reasons to offer and the procedure to offer. This can be done by creating a fair and clear reward policy

iv.     Provide personal and career development opportunities by offering low-waged workers the ability to develop skills and experience and help them to  improve the chances of earning more

v.     Prevent employees from getting into financial difficulties by offering knowledge on financial literacy

vi.    Proper communication policy impose which includes variety of mechanisms like surveys, forums, polls and web chats to engage with employees to understand their financial challenges  

Mental Wellbeing

The world of work is changing, with employee engagement, flexible working, resilience and talent management. Therefore, with this changing nature people get affected by mental health either personally or through close ones. Hence, it is a crucial factor that the companies are facing a challenge on supporting and managing their employees’ mental health. Poor mental health can affect the way the employee think, feel or behave leading low performance. So, current business world is trying their best to manage the mental wellbeing of the employees and so they can earn rewards in terms of staff morale, productivity and loyalty. There are common diagnosed forms of mental health problems and it is more convenience if the people are aware about the symptoms making it easy to identify, so that the actions of prevention can be done before it is too long.

1.  Depression -A feeling of low mood that lasts for a long time and affects everyday life.

-          Feel hopeless, despairing, guilty, worthless, unmotivated and exhausted

-          Affect self-esteem, sleep, appetite, sex drive and physical health

At the early stage people find everything harder to do and seem less worthwhile, but most severe stage suicidal may be felt.

2. Anxiety - A feeling when the person is worried, tense or afraid

-          Sleep problems and panic attacks

Occasional anxiety is a normal human experience while long lasting can be overwhelming.

3. Panic attacks - Sudden, unexpected bouts of intense terror leading to difficulty breathing

-          Rapid, pounding heartbeat

-          Choking sensations, chest pain, trembling

-          Feeling faint

4. Obsessive-compulsive disorder  -  A type of anxiety disorder

-          Obsessions includes unwelcome thoughts, images, urges, worries or doubts that repeatedly appear in mind

-          Compulsions includes repetitive activities that is felt to do to reduce the anxiety caused by the obsession

5. Phobias - An extreme form of fear or anxiety triggered by a particular situation
6. Psychosis - Hallucinations or delusions
7. Personality disorders - Type of a mental health problem where attitudes, beliefs and behaviors cause long-standing problems in life

Mental health just like the physical health which goes ups and downs with the situations faced. The factors that lead to bad mental wellbeing are mentioned below.

i.        Working long hours and not taking breaks

ii.       Unrealistic expectations or deadlines

iii.      High-pressure environments

iv.      Unmanageable workloads or lack of control over work

v.       Negative relationships or poor communication

vi.      An unsupportive workplace culture or lack of management support

vii.     Job insecurity or poor change management and high-risk roles 

viii.    Abuse caused being a child, trauma or neglect

ix.      Social isolation or loneliness

x.       Experiencing discrimination and/or stigma

xi.      Social disadvantage, poverty or debt

xii.     Severe or long-term stress

xiii.    Having a long-term physical health condition

xiv.    Homelessness or poor housing

xv.     Being a long-term care-taker for someone

xvi.    Drug and alcohol misuse

xvii.   Domestic violence, bullying or other abuse as an adult

xviii. Significant trauma as an adult, such as military combat, being involved in a serious incident in which someone fears for their life, or being the victim of a violent crime

xix.   Physical causes – for example, a head injury or a neurological condition

It is important to manage the mental wellbeing of the employees as they effect the productivity of the company and the profits earn. Therefore, companies should always take preventive actions in order to make a better mental wellbeing of the employees by some work adjustments. Some of them are mentioned below.

• Flexible hours or change to start or finish times
• Change of workspace, for example quieter, more or fewer people around, dividing screens
• Working from home at certain times or on certain days in a given period
• Changes to break times 
• Light-box or seat with more natural light
• Agreement to give an employee time off for appointments related to their mental health, such as therapy and counseling
• Temporarily changing duties, for example changing the balance of desk work and customer-facing work, reducing caseloads, changing shift patterns
• Reallocation of some tasks or amendments to the employee’s job description or duties
• Redeployment to a more suitable role
• Increased supervision or support from manager, buddy or mentor
• Extra help with managing and negotiating workload
• Debriefing sessions after difficult calls, customers or tasks
• Mediation can help if there are difficulties between colleagues
• Access to a mental health support group or disability network group
• Identifying a ‘safe space’ in the workplace where the person can have some time out or access support
• Provision of information to promote self-care
• Encouraging employees to work on building up their resilience and doing things that support good mental health such as exercise, meditation or eating healthily
• Providing regular opportunities to discuss review and reflect on people’s positive achievements which help to build up positive self-esteem and develop skills to manage better their triggers for poor mental health.

Physical Wellbeing

Physical wellbeing is not just physical health, such as being free from infection; it’s more than that as it incorporates way of life behavior choices to guarantee wellbeing, avoid preventable infections and conditions and to live in a balanced state of body and mind. For example, many companies offer fitness incentives or gym memberships to its employees in order to promote healthy lifestyle and prevent development of multiple illnesses. With office life being more deskbound than ever, there's a real risk of employees' physical health and wellbeing to endure. A person’s working environment could give a tremendous effect on their health and wellbeing. Ensuring the work place is in a perfect state for an employee to feel less stressed and more motivated to act is essential. Furthermore, taking care of physical wellbeing of employees also means providing benefits that will help employees control their ongoing chronic diseases. Therefore, many successful companies have offered onsite health screening programs and have started promoting physical wellbeing with solutions that help their employees’ team up to build a healthy wellbeing culture which has helped them to reduce healthcare costs and absenteeism with good employee wellbeing.

Managing employees is very important as controlling finance and other resources by developing a healthy workplace culture. Health and safety at work involves a wide range of duties and initiatives aimed at maintaining a safe work place for employees. In many countries through the legislation this has been defined and there are laws and regulations for enhancing physical wellbeing. It includes written policies on health and safety, to education and training for staff, risk assessments and monitoring and also providing insurance in some companies.

Employers have a duty to protect people from harm and have to take following steps to protect their employees from physical health risks.

•          Identifying the work or situations that cause physical health risks

•          Identifying risk taking employees

•          Decide likelihood of exposure

•          Take actions to avoid the risk or control the risk.

To create a productive workforce the employees should be encouraged to take care of their physical wellbeing by embracing the work environment. However the physical wellbeing and the mental wellbeing are the two sides of the same coin where physical wellbeing can improve mood, reduce stress and anxiety which leads to mental wellbeing.

Recent researches have suggested that low-intensity activity, performed regularly can be beneficial for the mental health which gives the meaning that encouraging employees to get up from their desks to go for a walk can help to raise their mood and protect against poor mental wellbeing. Therefore, implementing staff activities and events which fit in with the employee workload, paying attention to physical wellbeing in the workplace is a great way to improve productivity.

There are some ways to make changes to the daily routine of the employees in order to improve their physical wellbeing.

1.  Provide healthier options for travel to office – Encouraging walking, cycling, running to the way to work in order to build up fitness, strength and reduce the cost of travelling of the employees and facilitate cycle bays, showers and changing areas

2.  Implementing places to do physical activities in work place -  Offering benefits such as indoor play areas, fitness units and a gym membership

3.   Compulsory regular screen breaks – Allowing employees the time to stand up to do stretching exercises, take phone calls while standing, or get up to talk to people rather than emailing by providing a regular work alarms

4.  Encourage the use of the stairs – to build up aerobic capacity, raise heart rate and increase muscle strength of the employees

5.  Go outside at lunchtime

6.  Provide employees a healthy diet -  healthy options from the staff cafeteria and the vending machine

7.   Avoid or discourage long working hours

8.  Include the employees in a team charter

9. Conducting health promotions and educational campaigns and exercise-based charity activities

10. Tackling potentially unhealthy environmental factors like noise, ventilation, lighting and sanitary facilities at the work place

References and Bibliography

CIPD(2021). Reward Management Survey. CIPD. [e-report]. Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/reward-management-wellbeing_tcm18-91390.pdf. [Accessed on 14 December 2021]

CIPD(2021). [online]. Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk. [Accessed on 14 December 2021]

Science Direct (2021). [online]. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/search?qs=employee%20wellbeing. [Accessed on 14 December 2021]

SemosCloud, 2020. Employee Wellbeing in the Workplace: Importance and Future Predictions.[online]. Available At: https://semoscloud.com/blog/employee-wellbeing/. [Accessed on 14 December 2021]