Employee Wellbeing Should Be Part of Your Organization’s Employment Brand

bar napkin with take care of yourself showing the importance of employee wellbeing

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

(Editor’s Note: Today’s article is brought to you by SentryHealth, a health and wellbeing management company focused on personalized, full-service solutions. Check out their 2021 Employee Health and Wellbeing Outlook Report, which reveals the effect of COVID-19 on employee wellbeing. Thanks for reading!)

We’ve all seen the articles predicting an “employee turnover tsunami” as the pandemic ends. But this doesn’t mean that organizations are predestined for this situation. As organizations focus on the future, it’s important to think about their employees and employment brand.

Organizations should ask themselves, “What do we want to be known for when it comes to the employee experience?”

The answer to that question will be the driver for how organizations hire, engage, and retain the best talent. Which in turn helps them to achieve their goals. One way to look at creating and maintaining an employment brand is to think of it in terms of the employee value proposition (EVP). The EVP represents all of those things that employees receive by working at your organization. It includes all of the things you would expect:

Rewards: Let’s start with the obvious. The EVP includes employee compensation, benefits, and perks. It also includes how organizations choose to give out compensation, benefits, and perks in terms of employee rewards and recognition programs.

Learning: This is about employee performance. Employees want to know that they will receive training for the jobs they have and development for future opportunities. They want to know that their goals are challenging but attainable. And they want to know their performance will be evaluated fairly.

Wellbeing: While employees aren’t afraid of hard work, they do want to have a life. They want to know that they can take off work when they need to, and their job isn’t at risk when they do. Employees want to know that they work for a company that realizes employee wellness helps individuals do their best work.

Organization: Employees want to work for organizations that they’re proud of. They want to know that the organization hires and promotes quality managers and leaders. Employees want to work at companies that realize giving back to the community is good for everyone.

Today, I want to focus on one aspect of the EVP – employee benefits. Because honestly, sometimes organizations don’t promote their benefit packages as much or as early as they should. Sometimes companies wait and talk about benefits at the time they extend a job offer or during orientation. Or sometimes they wait until after an employee has been around for a few weeks or months to mention that there’s a benefit available.

Employees Want Wellbeing Benefits

It’s time for organizations to think about promoting their employee benefit package earlier. A study on the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) website said that 62% of employees were willing to consider a lower salary in exchange for better benefits. Of course, I’m not suggesting that organizations not offer candidates a competitive salary. But I am reminding us that benefits are a big factor in a job seeker’s decision. So, it makes some sense to spend additional time promoting the value of the company’s benefits package.

This is especially true with benefits that have a proactive quality to them, like the ones that are aligned with wellness and wellbeing. While wellness programs have been around for decades, I think it’s fair to say that they’ve received increased attention lately. A recent Gallup survey said that the top two things that employees – regardless of age – look for in an employer is 1) The organization cares about employees’ wellbeing and 2) The organization’s leadership is ethical.

I recently learned about SentryHealth’s wellbeing solution called WellOnMyWay. This solution brings together the three key ingredients to a successful wellbeing program.

  1. Program personalization based on the information employees provide in a health assessment, biometric screenings, health care claims data, prescription data, and more.
  1. Technology capabilities that enable employees to have anytime, anywhere access to their benefits. It can connect with other health apps like Apple Health, Fitbit, and Garmin to help employees track activities, participate in challenges, and seek help when needed.
  1. User engagement by tracking progress toward goals, participating in challenges, and redeeming rewards. WellOnMyWay provides a full-service, holistic approach including physical health, mental health, emotional health, and financial wellness.

One of the things that I like about SentryHealth’s WellOnMyWay is that everything is in one place. As an employee, I can look at my wellbeing dashboard and decide what I want to prioritize. And if I’m unsure, WellOnMyWay can guide, encourage, and support me through that decision making process. We all know that if we set too many goals for ourselves, we run the risk of becoming overwhelmed, frustrated, and ultimately, not accomplishing anything. This doesn’t help me or the organization.

Wellbeing Programs Benefit Employees and Employers

Many companies are looking for ways to stand out as an employer right now. Showing candidates and employees that the organization values wellbeing is a way to do it. The keyword here is “showing”. It’s time for organizations to let candidates and employees know they have programs in place for wellbeing. Don’t be afraid to make the wellbeing message part of the organization’s recruitment marketing strategy. It could be very helpful in attracting, engaging, and retaining talent. 

P.S. If you’re looking for a way to start a conversation with your senior leadership team about wellbeing benefits, check out SentryHealth’s new step-by-step guide for “Building a Business Case for Your Wellbeing Investment”. I love the section that talks about calculating both return-on-investment (ROI) as well as value-on-investment (VOI). That section alone is worth the download. But I promise you’ll find more great information in the document.

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