Strategy | How to improve your wellbeing strategy; the simple and effective way

By Kay Needle, Early Intervention and Rehabilitation Expert at Generali UK Employee Benefits

You’ve got data galore; probably more than you can manage. You’ve got wellbeing benefits and services in place; probably more than you realise. Still, absence is on the increase and wellbeing remains intangible.

Whatever stage you’re at with your wellbeing strategy – whether starting from scratch or trying to improve the existing – it pays to pause, reflect and realise it doesn’t have to be complicated to be manageable, measurable and, ultimately, effective.

Workplace wellbeing is in the spotlight; more now than ever before. And not only for employers, employees and providers alike, but also for the UK government. The Keep Britain Working review is helping place the need for prevention front and centre; specifically with absence management in mind.

The goal is to shift away from the traditional route of primarily reacting to issues as they arise. This needs to be balanced with something much more proactive – from preventing issues occurring in the first place, wherever possible, to providing relevant support early in an absence to help individuals get back on track sooner.

In short, the pressure is on to get your wellbeing strategy working better – for your people and your business.

“It’s for all these reasons – and more – that Unum designed the Workplace Health and Wellbeing Review. This provides a framework to help organisations tailor a plan to their specific needs, with a view to helping employees thrive at work. It also helps you benchmark your initiatives against national standards,” says Yvonne Roberts, Wellbeing Consultant at Unum, the leading employee benefits provider managing the renewal rights of Generali UK’s group risk business, as announced last year.

We recently spoke with Yvonne, as part of a webinar.* Here are some of the highlights.

Kay: What is an effective workplace health and wellbeing strategy?

Yvonne: It’s a roadmap that guides businesses on how they’re going to manage employee health and wellbeing, aligning with business objectives and employees’ existing and future needs.

This roadmap must fit within the existing culture of the business. At the same time, you might recognise there are some changes that need to be made to a culture and you want to use the plan to help make that shift.

For example, a client I worked with recognised they had a “yes” culture. That’s lovely and comes from a place of positive intent. But, at the same time, it was a high demand environment – like most workplaces these days – and if you’re saying “yes” to everything, that’s not a good path to health and wellbeing. The company recognised this and wanted to make adjustments.

Kay: So, looking under the hood of all that, what are the core elements of a strategy that will help employers make the shift from reactive to proactive?

Yvonne: First, it needs to be flexible, so it can change according to changing conditions. In other words, you start with a core framework, which is guided by the principles and objectives that you’ve identified as relevant for your business. For example, supporting good mental health or reducing absence in a particular area of the business. Then you work within that framework. This, as opposed to having a very fixed plan.

Flexibility also means continuously gathering and reviewing data, including employee feedback. And making sure you’re reviewing this regularly with stakeholders. Often businesses will have a dashboard, then meet with stakeholders, maybe quarterly, to analyse the impact of the plan – what’s working, what isn’t. This allows you to adapt and flex accordingly.

Secondly, clarity. This seems like an obvious point. But when you have a range of benefits and services available, you must ensure everyone knows about them and can easily access them. That might involve anything from a simple one-pager on where to find what, to a digital pathway that starts with triage then signposts appropriately; perhaps to virtual GP or Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), depending on the problem.

Thirdly, it needs to be aligned to the culture. It can’t be at odds with the existing culture. Yes, we can use the plan to make some gentle shifts. But, if needed, there would be a separate cultural change project going on. The plan itself should be squarely focused on how to better include health and wellbeing on your agenda.

Fourthly, it needs to be yours. It can’t be something off-the-shelf. It needs to be specific to your business – its strengths, challenges and needs.

And, finally, it doesn’t need to be complex. It doesn’t have to be this huge, complicated, costly thing. You can utilise what you already have within the business; from employee networks to getting onside individual managers who are doing good things on wellbeing – building a base of advocates.

Kay: There are a lot of resources out there to help, but it can be a minefield. So, what resources do you think are most useful to help organisations design and implement a strategy?

Yvonne: The guidance that we use here at Unum – the one we’ve based our Workplace Health and Wellbeing Review on – is the Stevenson/Farmer Thriving at Work report, from 2017. That’s a set of recommendations to help employers better manage mental health in the workplace. It includes six core standards, that apply as much to wellbeing, in its entirety, as they do to mental health.

We built on these standards to offer a Health and Wellbeing Review for our Group Income Protection customers. We also used resources like the Mental Health at Work Commitment, the CIPD’s 7 Domains of Wellbeing.

We start with a comprehensive consultation, where we discuss what they already have in place and assess against the standards. We also examine what steps they could take to more fully meet those standards in the areas that are most relevant for them.

We work with companies of all sizes and sectors, providing ongoing support for up to a year to help them get into a good place.

*To access a free recording of the full webinar, entitled ‘Unum’s Workplace Health & Wellbeing Review’, please email [email protected] 

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