Foreword
Gethin Nadin, Chief Innovation Officer, Benefex
Employee wellbeing has become a major strategic focus for employers in all industries over recent years. Business leaders have recognised and, for the most part, accepted their role in supporting and enhancing all aspects of employee wellbeing, both inside and outside the workplace.
Across the board, there is an understanding that wellbeing should sit at the heart of every organisation’s people strategy; an output and input of employee experience, engagement and productivity. Indeed, as our research finds, wellbeing provision is now the biggest consideration for people when selecting an employer.
But while there is no doubting the importance of wellbeing for employers in 2023, developing and executing a strategy which delivers meaningful and measurable impact in this area is another thing.
We are faced with the worst cost-of-living crisis for a generation which has brought financial strain to the lives of millions of employees. This is just the latest in several recent and significant events that have added culminative strain on employee mental health.
All of this is happening against a continued backdrop of political and social unrest, so it’s no surprise that employees are prioritising their wellbeing more than ever, and little wonder that employers are finding it difficult to respond effectively.
Two years ago, Benefex undertook comprehensive research to explore how employers were adapting their wellbeing strategies in response to seismic shifts in the world of work. And last year, we examined the employee perspective, highlighting the changing needs and priorities for workers around the world as rising costs of living and financial pressures began to bite.
Now, in 2023, we’ve brought employers and employees together into one study to generate a complete picture on the current state of employee wellbeing provision. And it reveals that wellbeing is the lens through which employers are assessing their strategic initiatives – employee experience, benefits, reward and recognition, and talent acquisition. Wellbeing is now the number one people-related priority for organisations of all sizes, in all industries.
Wellbeing is now the number one people-related priority for organisations of all sizes, in all industries.
However, the research exposes the relative lack of progress that HR and Reward professionals (and employees) feel their organisations are making. The number of employers operating at an advanced level within their wellbeing provision has actually fallen since 2021. For business leaders, this should ring alarm bells given the amount of focus and investment directed at wellbeing over the last two years. Certainly, there is now a wealth of research and data that proves the impact that poor wellbeing has on standard measures of organisational success such as productivity and profitability.
I think employers are facing two major challenges. Firstly, employee expectations around wellbeing are rising exponentially – people are turning to their employers for help and assistance in areas of their lives where previously they simply wouldn’t have. And secondly, people’s needs are evolving at such speed that it is becoming incredibly difficult for employers to keep pace. Wellbeing programmes and benefits which were targeted and effective a year ago are quickly becoming irrelevant and poorly directed. HR and Reward professionals are urgently searching for ways to overcome these challenges and improve their wellbeing provision. And in most cases, they are focusing on employee benefits as a vehicle to enhance all aspects of employee wellbeing – financial, physical and emotional wellbeing and mental health.
HR and reward leaders are focusing on employee benefits as a vehicle to enhance all aspects of employee wellbeing – financial, physical and emotional wellbeing and mental health.
This aligns with employee demands, as workers are far more engaged with benefits as a way to protect themselves against the impact of illness and injury, and mitigate against soaring living costs.
Employers remain steadfast in their commitment to protect and improve employee wellbeing. HR and Reward professionals point to wellbeing as the area of HR most likely to see increased investment over the next 12 months. And to some degree, there is a recognition among employees that organisations are making serious moves to support them through the current cost-of-living crisis.
The challenge for HR and Reward professionals is to develop holistic wellbeing strategies which can stay ahead of evolving employee expectations. They need to adopt data-driven approaches to better understand employee needs, and measure the impact of their wellbeing initiatives to target programmes where they can deliver real, tangible impact.
100 online interviews with HR / Reward professionals. 62% had global employees.
2,000 online interviews with employees, evenly split between employees in India, Singapore, the UK, and the U.S.
All respondents worked for organisations with 200 or more employees.
Sectors included: manufacturing, healthcare, pharmaceutical, technology/media, retail, public sector, professional services, financial services, transport and logistics, and energy and utilities.
All research was conducted by Insight Avenue in March 2023.
