Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But how far do most businesses go to create real wellbeing for their employees?
Extensive research and analysis from Gallup shows the impact on business of employee wellbeing, which it defines as five dimensions:
- Career Wellbeing: how you occupy your time — or simply liking what you do every day
- Social Wellbeing: having strong relationships and love in your life
- Financial Wellbeing: effectively managing your economic life
- Physical Wellbeing: having good health and enough energy to get things done on a daily basis
- Community Wellbeing: the sense of engagement you have with the area where you live
For example: Employees with high wellbeing have 41% lower health-related costs compared with employees who have lower wellbeing. In a firm that has 10,000 employees, this difference amounts to nearly $30 million.
And: People who have thriving wellbeing have a 35% lower turnover rate than those who are struggling; in a 10,000-person company, this represents $19.5 million.
The research is US-centric, and easier to attach financial figures to healthcare because they are usually born by employers, but in the UK, with long waiting lists for treatment on the NHS, and the cost of absenteeism it is just as relevant.
