The Most Attractive Incentive: A Culture of Physical Employee Wellbeing

In our last blog we talked about the importance of building a work culture that is focused on securing better emotional employee wellness. As many companies pivoted to remote work as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, many negative work culture behaviors became widespread and resulted in a national turnover crisis.

These negative behaviors caused many employees to not only leave companies in search of new opportunities, but to also prioritize employee wellness and wellbeing more than they had before. That’s why it’s important for hiring managers and recruiters to build a culture of wellness that can serve as an attractive hiring incentive for prospective talent.

But employee wellness doesn’t stop at emotional wellbeing. Instead, studies have shown that it’s just as important for companies to encourage physical wellbeing within their workforce in order to secure high employee morale.

Navigating The Nuances of Remote Work

While working remotely from home has its perks, it’s also been shown to come with it’s own unique set of problems that only serve to further promote overworking. One of the main issues that remote employees struggle with is that there is a less clear delineation between work and home, and the ubiquity of technology and smart devices means it’s grown incredibly hard to distance oneself from work in times of stress.

Again, it’s no surprise that burnout has become a central issue for many companies, with burnout commonly being attributed to massive rates of turnover across multiple industries. As employees struggle with a new remote-first work culture, prospective talent is valuing a new incentive: employee wellness initiatives.

The Benefits of Employee Wellness

When managers recognize distress in one of their employees and can provide adequate responses, such as offering them time off or even just someone to vent to, they build trust with that employee. Trust between managers and employees is shown to build a more loyal, cooperative and altogether more productive workplace.

Additionally, better employee wellness programs reduce elevated health risks and reduce healthcare costs. Insurers are likely to lower premiums if they see that your company is taking measured steps to not only provide better employee wellbeing, but actively encourage it.

Finally, better wellness programs reduce absenteeism. When people feel supported in their roles mentally, emotionally and financially, they are more likely to show up on time and with high morale.

Providing Physical Employee Wellness Incentives

A holistic approach to wellbeing does more than provide emotional support. It also provides physical wellbeing incentives that support emotional wellness.

Tips for Improving Physical Employee Wellness:

Access to a gym, either through an onsite facility or subsidized gym memberships. This can be supported by organizing classes at your onsite facility or scheduling time for employees to visit classes at their own local gym.
Private health assessments and subsidized immunization events. These events encourage employees to take advantage of the reduced cost and easy accessibility, and ensure that your employees are healthy and informed.
Offer paid time off that is spent on events like marathons or charity drives. This has the added benefit of providing a welcome break from the office and the potential for positive PR.

Finding Good, Motivated Talent

These physical and emotional incentives are great for attracting top-quality talent to your team, but it’s not a recruitment solution in and of itself.

If you want to source highly-motivated employees, you need to invest in recruitment practices and technology that allow you to locate talent and engage with them in a meaningful way while also showcasing the attractive incentives of working for your company.

Fortunately, Wavely is the perfect hiring platform for doing all of those things and is shown to save hiring managers and recruiters time and money. Learn more here.