Workplace wellbeing must not be a missed opportunity
Leading North West business destination, Birchwood Park, is calling for firms to implement joined-up wellbeing strategies to ensure workplace wellbeing does not become a missed opportunity.
This comes as a survey included in the park’s Workplace Wellbeing Report, released this week, has revealed that although 99 per cent consider workplace wellbeing important, with 91 per cent linking wellbeing directly to staff happiness; a third of respondents did not know whether their organisation had a wellbeing strategy in place.
The results suggest that some businesses might be missing out on the opportunity to improve staff happiness and associated benefits of improved productivity, staff retention and profitability; by either not prioritising wellbeing or not communicating their actions with staff.
The costs associated with wellbeing initiatives have been widely published with statistics released in 2017 showing the annual wellbeing spend as £51-75 per employee for those businesses with a defined wellbeing strategy, and up to £25 per employee for those organisations without a strategy in place.
Martin O’Rourke, commercial director at Birchwood Park, said: “The wellbeing outlook in the North West is a positive one. Our conversations with key businesses in the region, both here at Birchwood Park and beyond, have shown there are shining examples of companies who are throwing everything they have behind creating effective wellbeing strategies, and there’s a lot to be learnt from those businesses that are doing wellbeing well.
“Most businesses are investing in wellbeing whether they have a defined strategy or not, so it makes complete sense to join the dots and create a plan of activity for the year that speaks to people in your business. This is something that is really important to employees, and over the last 20 years we’ve seen firsthand that, whatever the size of your business, there are steps that can be taken to create workplaces that cultivate staff happiness and wellbeing.”
More than 150 employees took part in the online survey that engaged businesses in the North West. Alongside the survey results, Birchwood Park’s first Wellbeing Report includes a roundtable discussion featuring leading North West businesses: Travel Counsellors, Dr Schär, Wood plc and Browne Jacobson.
Additional findings from the report showed having amenities in close proximity and the office environment/fit-out to be of most importance to employee wellbeing, while mental health was highlighted as the biggest challenge for the workplace over the next 10 years. View the full report here.
