Employees’ health and well-being, mental and physical, depend on factors that go beyond their work lives. Day-to-day experiences have an impact on employees’ feelings and outlook, as do global issues from technological evolution to climate change. It’s time to start thinking bigger when creating wellness in the workplace.
On a practical level, this means HR departments need to take a big-picture approach when creating policies to address wellness in the workplace. A simple benefits package with basic health insurance and no more can lose its appeal when employees are consistently dealing with issues that go beyond what that plan affects.
The wide-ranging future of employee wellness
According to researchers looking for ways to improve people management, HR departments of tomorrow will have to start considering holistic wellness factors. Only thinking about people’s workplace experiences is a very narrow perspective, one that won’t help employers deliver real wellness.
Harvard researchers funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) ranked the types of experiences and factors that affect employee work.[1] They broke these into three tiers, only the last of which is actually under the employer’s control[2]:
- Social, political and economic factors include the climate, diseases, social structures, the global economy and other overarching patterns.
- Employment and labor issues are nearly as universal, and include the distribution of jobs and the ways in which work is performed.
- Work conditions are the immediate factors that individual companies can set for their employees. That means the work environment, practices and the way the workforce is organized.
The research team recommended that in future, thinkers working on new models of employee safety and wellness should realize that everything people deal with in their daily lives will have an impact on how they feel and perform on the job. This is becoming especially clear as hybrid and remote work become more popular, blurring the lines between private life and employment.
Getting a head start on holistic wellness in the workplace
The future of health and wellness in the workplace will likely include a wider variety of options and offerings to help employees deal with the many stressors impacting them. Your company can stand out as a top employer by starting on this approach right away, with in-depth and expansive wellness policies and programs.
The Society for Human Resource Management points out that there’s no need to constrain health and wellness options for employees. As long as a program complies with regulations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by not excluding any workers, it can contain elements ranging from stress reduction and nutrition classes to vaccination clinics.[3]
Elements of effective wellness policies
How can you craft a more futuristic wellness program? You can think about potentially overlooked aspects of the employee experience, and take actions such as:
- Incorporate technology, either helping workers dealing with the stressors of increasing tech use or by delivering wellness materials digitally, or both. For instance, companies using videoconferencing every day could help workers deal with “Zoom fatigue” through enforced downtime or meditation classes.
- Understand the world beyond the office and ensure programs reflect the issues employees will be dealing with. For example, during office shutdowns, employees have benefited from programs to deal with loneliness, encouraging them to be social both in and out of a work context.
- Update insurance and other benefits to incorporate issues beyond physical health. If your organizational insurance options stop at the standard combination of health, dental and vision, you have plenty of room to supplement those offerings.
ArmadaCare has designed its WellPak suite of complementary health insurance plans* to focus on employee mental health and well-being. Top employers can stand out by caring for their workers’ needs with these types of offerings. Learn more.
*The above referenced supplemental health insurance policies have exclusions, limitations, and benefits that vary by plan and state. For detailed coverage information, refer to your specific Certificate of Insurance.
[1] Social Science & Medicine, 2021