A Guide to Wellbeing Benefits for Employees
Employees are the heartbeat of your organisation, so ensuring their continued wellbeing and health is a critical concern. This is especially true in the current climate of a worldwide stress epidemic.
On average, we spend a third of our lives at work. As personal and work lives become more intertwined, it’s unsurprising that 76% of workers have reported a stress-related absence in the last year. This “always on” culture significantly impacts productivity, employee engagement and satisfaction, and, ultimately, retention.
As you look to build out or develop a wellbeing strategy as part of your company’s health benefits for employees, it’s vital to consider what your internal team is looking for that can help day-to-day. For larger organisations, you may already have a robust health and wellbeing benefits plan in place. But there are always new trends and technology in the industry that can give you complementary options to add to your existing benefits package.
We stand behind the belief that healthy companies grow from within, so we’re here to walk you through some of the important points to consider when it comes to wellbeing benefits for employees that actually make a difference.
What are wellbeing benefits for employees?
With global stress levels and burnout on the rise, a focus on employee wellbeing has never been more important. In 2022 alone, nearly 900,000 workers in the UK reported work-related stress, with workplace anxieties reported as the most common type of stress for the preceding three years.
“Whilst technology and science are advancing, the quality of our working lives is declining. We’re more stressed than ever before.”
Reeva Misra, Founder and CEO of Walking on Earth (Whitepaper)
Traditionally, company benefits like salary, annual leave, retirement, and national health insurance were the only compensation offered to employees. Wellbeing benefits, though, have grown over the last few decades as supplemental perks.
While these have been at the discretion of employers, many examples of wellbeing benefits for employees have centred around physical health to reduce employee stress. Despite these additions, 65% of adults say that their mental wellbeing is now worse than before 2020.
But wellbeing is so much more than physical health, encompassing social, financial and mental aspects of life. Wellbeing is a life skill to learn and a lifestyle to maintain, not simply a tick in a benefits box.
And your employees know this already. 87% are having more conversations about wellbeing since the pandemic and as younger generations make up a larger percentage of the workforce - 30% will be Gen Z within the next year - it’s time for businesses looking to attract top talent to have these conversations.
In many cases, younger demographics are entering the workforce and placing wellbeing benefits ahead of salary when it comes to their overall benefits package. Reactive measures like in-office yoga or access to therapy programs are no longer enough. Instead, a preventive approach to wellbeing is essential for companies to demonstrate their commitment to eliminating workplace stress before it happens.
As a preventative employee wellbeing platform, we’re addressing the human and business cost of workplace stress, by training employees to effectively regulate stress, so they can perform at their best. We’ll step in ahead of burnout becoming a problem and guide your employees through expert-led sessions towards a more balanced approach to life in the modern company.
Examples of wellbeing benefits
Depending on what your company’s already implemented in terms of health benefits for employees, wellbeing can mean a number of different things. Your focus areas will likely be broken down into two categories: physical and mental wellbeing.
Physical benefits
Alongside traditional benefits packages, physical wellbeing benefits were the first to be added as supplemental options in most companies. These included perks like:
- Gym or fitness membership or reimbursements
- In-office yoga or team workout programs
- Cycle-to-work schemes
- Office-supplied health snacks in the kitchen or breakroom
- Flexible working schedule and hybrid or work-from-home opportunities
Mental benefits
Examples of mental wellbeing benefits are still more limited across a range of industries, typically falling under:
- Resources such as access to counselling or therapy services. Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are also an example of this.
- Mindfulness and wellbeing education
Comprehensive corporate wellbeing programs
Individual perks that make up a full benefits package are no longer what employees are looking for. With work and personal responsibilities to see to, 76% of workers have less than two hours a week to dedicate to their own health and wellbeing. They simply don’t have the time or energy to piece together these benefits and make a bespoke program that’s best for them.
When you’re using a comprehensive corporate wellbeing platform, this work is already done. Our programming offers regular and consistent support to all employees, is available in live sessions or on-demand, and provides personalised journeys for each individual based on their unique needs. Calendar integration reminds employees to prioritise their health, fitting into their schedules with expert-led guidance and providing micro moments of recovery throughout the day.
“The solution works for me because we’re so busy in our day jobs, that we don’t always have time to invest in health, and wellbeing activities like exercise which can take longer.”
Yvonne Liou, Development Manager at Plume Design Inc. (Case Study)
Within the app, our program offers a range of wellbeing initiatives, including sleep and nutrition advice for those out-of-work hours, along with research-backed, expert-led support on:
- Breathwork
- Mindfulness
- Stretching and yoga
- Tai Chi
- Coaching
- Neuroscience education
- Performance training
- Habit building
Using breakthrough technological advancements including biometric data and artificial intelligence (AI) allow your team to have a truly custom experience. And with 1 in 3 Millennials looking for more personalisation in their products and services, offering unique-to-them benefits is necessary for businesses looking to make an outward commitment to overall company health.
These benefits extend beyond the individual too. Managers are under increased pressure to support highly-stressed individuals and teams, with only 37% having had training to spot the signs of burnout that lead to absenteeism.
Poor management, for any reason, is the number one cause of employees leaving their jobs. Using a precision health platform like ours allows managers to preventatively address burnout through their own wellbeing training and support, and creating a trickle-down, lead-by-example effect on the rest of their team. This then translates into more time for managers to concentrate on the traditional roles of management.
“Leadership layers, starting from the CEO all the way to first line managers, need to exhibit behaviours for good wellbeing and walk the talk.”
Ruchika Sikri, Former Head of Well-Being Learning at Google (Whitepaper)
What are the benefits of increasing employee wellbeing?
As of early 2024, there’s limited guidance on whether employee wellbeing benefits are taxable or not.
Currently, the only wellbeing benefits that could qualify for UK tax breaks are those that fall under EAPs, such as counselling and physical health treatment. These are considered exemptions under Section 210 of the Income Tax (Earnings and Pensions) Act 2003, but it’s always advised that you speak with your company’s tax advisor regarding the specific benefits you offer to your team.
Despite this, there are still plenty of benefits to having a dedicated emphasis on employee wellbeing in your company, beyond reducing stress and preventing burnout.
Reduced time off work
Outside of annual leave and public holidays, you want to see a full headcount in the office, or working remotely, as much as possible. The inevitable sick day will always happen, but preventing these where possible should be a priority goal.
It’s easy to underestimate the negative impact that being mentally unwell can have on physical health until time off work is needed. In 2021, 57% of businesses reported that poor mental health was the most common reason for long term employee work absence. Not only does this absence impact the individual employee, but the negative effects are felt throughout their team and the rest of the company when picking up their workload while they’re off.
With a comprehensive wellbeing program providing guidance around sleep, nutrition, and other wellbeing factors, you can see a significant decrease in employee sick time off or occurrences of employees coming into the office but not fully present.
Increased productivity
Healthy people create healthy companies. And when your employees feel good, their productivity can increase significantly.
With many teams now working remotely or in hybrid roles, new issues have arisen around productivity and stress. Work anxiety may be reduced with no commute and a comfortable, familiar environment, but it’s easy for personal stressors to creep into the workday and make productivity more challenging.
But with a greater emphasis on wellbeing initiatives, employees can quickly see changes in their work and personal life balance with small, impactful moments of recovery throughout their day to refocus and engage in what they need to do.
From there, these employees are more likely to actively participate in meetings and take proactive measures in their daily work. Not only is this a benefit to them in terms of their own personal productivity, but this engagement can foster new ideas and boost team collaboration to have a tangible impact on overall company results.
Higher employee retention
Gone are the days of the majority of workers staying loyal to a single company for most, if not all, of their career. And with global organisations now open to remote workers, the opportunities for your team to pursue opportunities elsewhere have never been greater.
This becomes even more of a consideration when accounting for the fact that workers experiencing burnout, particularly women and those under 30, are over three times more likely to look for a new job.
Attracting new, high-quality talent is competitive and costly work when potential employees, and your current ones, are always comparing your company against others. Keeping your current team members is vital and with retention costs significantly lower than recruitment and onboarding expenses, finding ways to make the workday better for your employees is key.
“The reason for taking stress and burnout among your employees seriously isn’t just because it’s a nice thing to do (and it is), it’s also because it’s a competitive advantage.”
Arianna Huffington, CEO of Thrive Global and Founder of The Huffington Post (Whitepaper)
Through implementing a personalised wellbeing program, your team can find solutions that work best for their specific needs and integrate into their busy schedule. We can stop burnout before it occurs, helping your team effectively manage any stressful situation they come up against.
Reduced employee stress levels
We all know burnout is bad for business, but the long term impact on employee health should never be overlooked. Even for large organisations, the ability to help your employees on an individual level in a personalised way that works best for them is essential for their ongoing wellbeing.
Using precision programming, our corporate wellbeing platform allows businesses of all sizes to provide support on this one-on-one level effectively. By lowering stress, other benefits for both the employee and the business can be realised, like greater productivity and reduced sick leave.
We all face stressful moments at work, But improving wellbeing as a whole helps your employees feel more able to handle these situations in the moment and long after, without lingering negative impacts that can feed into other areas of their lives.
Lower healthcare costs
Implementing a corporate wellbeing program isn’t a small expense. The alternative, though, is even costlier. Over £50 billion was lost by UK businesses in 2022 due to mental illness-related sick days, increasing by 25% since 2019 and continuing to rise.
Work absences as a result of stress and burnout are expensive, no matter the size of your organisation. But for every £1 spent on employee wellbeing initiatives, businesses saw an average £5.30 return through lowering the number of company sick days and increasing productivity.
Solving the stress epidemic starts with you
For both employers and teams, the benefits of using a comprehensive employee wellbeing program like ours are numerous. At Walking on Earth, we present a new model of health for the modern workplace.
We partner with experts from health, science and beyond, blending academic and clinical excellence with leading-edge research to identify and overcome the root causes of stress and burnout.
Using our proprietary methodology, the WONE Method, we measure real time stress levels and intervene with guidance from world-class experts. And with the help of AI and personal biometric data, we create data-informed solutions, or micro moments, for recovery throughout the day to proactively care for and support your team.
Partner with us today to solve the stress epidemic in the global workplace.
