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employee Wellbeing

How to improve employee wellbeing today.

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understanding wellbeing

What is employee wellbeing?

Employee well-being refers to the overall health of your employees—mental, physical, emotional, and financial—and how their wellbeing across these four pillars affects how they show up at work. With employee burnout hitting record levels in the U.S., wellbeing needs to be a top priority for HR leaders and people managers.

The 4 dimensions of employee wellbeing.

Prioritizing employee wellbeing means embracing a holistic view of your people:

Physical wellbeing.

How’s their physical health? Do they feel physically safe and cared for? Have you established regular health and wellness initiatives that are accessible to all employees?

Emotional wellbeing.

How are your people doing emotionally? Are they experiencing high levels of stress? Does your culture support their psychological safety?

Social wellbeing.

What about employees’ ability to build and maintain meaningful relationships? Do your people feel that they’re part of a team? Do you hold space for connection among employees (e.g. team building activities) so they feel like they belong?

Financial wellbeing.

How are your people meeting financial obligations? Are they burdened by their finances? Beyond retirement savings and base insurance, how do you help your people navigate financial stressors (e.g. financial planning and coaching benefits)?

the numbers

Why modern companies care about employee wellbeing.

Your employees deserve to be well and whole because they are people. Beyond this fact, forward-thinking organizations understand that their people power everything—which is why they're prioritizing employee wellbeing programs.

But too many organizations are still falling short: Gallup reports that fewer than 1 in 4 employees in the U.S. think that their company cares about their wellbeing. That's the lowest percentage in nearly a decade. On the flip side, they found that employees who agree that their company cares about their wellbeing are:

69%

less likely to actively search for a new job.

71%

less likely to report experiencing a lot of burnout.

5x

more likely to strongly advocate for their company as a place to work.

The Mental Health Support Gap.

According to new data from The Harris Poll, 52% of employed Americans believe their employer is not doing enough to support employees' mental health.

This points to a gap between what employees are feeling—especially as it relates to what’s happening in the world—and what many people leaders are doing to support wellbeing within their company.

How 3 companies are prioritizing employee
wellbeing right now.

Improving employee wellbeing is a journey—you likely won't get it right on the first try. The key is to collaborate with your people and experiment with policies that make sense for your unique organization. Here's how 3 different companies are approaching employee wellbeing:

How Buffer is giving employees more time back to boost wellbeing:

  • Implementing 4-day workweeks so their people can take more time to refresh on the weekend.

  • Offering a 6-week sabbatical after every 5 years spent with the company.

How PwC supports employee care through flexibility:

  • Offering not just the choice to work anywhere, but tailoring work schedules to their specific needs.

  • Providing two week-long, company-wide shutdowns each year so their people can recharge.

How ImmunoGen keeps their people energized with experiences:

  • Implementing experience-based workplace wellbeing incentives that focus on renewing overall employee wellbeing.

  • Employees are sharing their experiences with their peers, showcasing impact and getting teammates excited.

See how immunogen does it

3 strategies to improve employee wellbeing
now and in the future.

Let’s set you up for success. Here are a few strategies you can use to improve your current employee wellbeing program, adopted from people-first organizations around the world:

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why experiences

How you can use experiential rewards to boost employee wellbeing.

Recognition and rewards are powerful tools you can use to show employees they're seen, that their work is appreciated. This acknowledgement can greatly improve employees' sense of wellbeing.

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Gift cards, stuff, cash—these kinds of rewards are great, but experiential rewards actually go so much further to boost wellbeing because they're, well, experiential. Research shows that experiences improve our wellbeing. How? Experiences give us the opportunity to share joy with those close to us. And when you look back on life’s special moments, it’s the experiences that you remember most.

Explore experiential rewards from Blueboard

EMPLOYEE WELLBEING RESOURCES

Check out a few more popular resources all about employee wellbeing:

Blog

Your brain on experiences: How to drive employee well-being by focusing on fulfillment

Get insight on how organizations can harness the power of experiences to increase fulfillment and well-being.

Catch up on the blog
Blog

4 strategies to create a culture of wellbeing

Get steps forward to support employee wellbeing from this webinar featuring a panel of HR and company leaders.

Catch up on the blog
Case Study

Energy Renewal by Blueboard fosters employee wellbeing

See how ImmunoGen improved wellbeing for employees in a remote world through experiential rewards.

Read the case study

Looking for the best way to reward, recognize and incentivize your top people?

Connect with our team for a personalized demo of our recognition and rewards platform and see our hand-curated experience menus.

Let's talk
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