Employee wellbeing is something all companies should be striving for if they want to pride themselves on being good employers. Even if your organization has the best intentions, the way work is organized may harm your workers’ wellbeing. Working conditions and expectations cause a lot of stress, impacting employees’ health and well-being.
The good news is that it is not that hard for managers to turn this situation around. Just by making slight organizational changes, managers can promote employee well-being and create long-term benefits for the organizations. Research shows that improving working conditions to increase employee wellbeing not only improves their health but also increases their job performance and lowers their chances for burnout.
Here are five things you can do to increase your employee’s well-being:
1. Give your employees more freedom over their work
Managers are important to evaluate an employee’s job and to make sure that they remain on track with the organizational goals. However, managers should be more discreet about how they are doing their job and give them more freedom and control over their work. Even small changes in employee autonomy can do wonders in increasing employee health and well-being. At the end of the day, they are the ones on the front line and at times, they know how to do something better, more efficient and what works best for them.
2. Create a flexible working environment
The advantages of work flexibility came into the spotlight during the pandemic when employees started working from home en mass. This gave them greater flexibility over their schedules and helped them save time that would otherwise be spent commuting to work. This allowed them to best manage their time during the day and to even work in times that they felt to be more productive. Having more control over their work schedules was found to improve their mental health.
3. Engage employees in work problem solving
No workplace is perfect enough for everyone. But when it comes to overcoming obstacles and creating a better workplace, employees should not be left out of those discussions. Identifying and addressing the problems of any workplace should involve as many employees as possible as they can provide valuable feedback. Research has found that the employees who are involved in such activities have increased job satisfaction and lower chances of burnout, and they tend to stay longer with an organization.
4. Maintain reasonable workloads and adequate staff
You must know how it feels in a fast-paced work environment with a lot of demands where the pressure to work hard and fast is essential. To keep productivity high and above limits is not possible to maintain in the long term, which has severe consequences on employee health and well-being and leads to various health risks. An effective way to manage a stressful situation like this is to identify where there is a high work demand and to hire extra people to help. This may seem costly, but being ill, burned out, or even quitting the job would be more detrimental to a business.
5. Foster a sense of belongingness among employees
Creating a work environment in which employees may form supportive connections with their coworkers can be an effective method for enhancing worker wellbeing. According to research, such professional connections are related to decreased psychological discomfort, which is a symptom of poor mental health.
Fostering a sense of social belonging does not have to be a difficult or costly endeavour. Even weekly or bi-weekly meetings of managers with their employees to check on them should do the trick.
Many management strategies that increase employee well-being also benefit employers. That should come as no surprise. Companies that care about their employees’ health and wellbeing are more likely to have employees that care about the firm too. And this should be the ultimate goal of all leaders.