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How to Create a Wellness Culture

The number of workplace wellbeing initiatives has been growing steadily over the past few years, as have the variety and scope of the interventions provided by employers. There is still, however, a long way to go before employee wellness comes of age as a well integrated field within organisational strategy, policy and practice. This article explores what needs to be done to achieve this – looking at what can be learned from organisations that have already made good progress, where wellbeing has been integrated into the company’s ethos to create a wellness culture.

Corporate Social Responsibility Solutions

As a starting point, it is interesting to note that a review of the external websites of 100 FTSE 250 companies from various sectors showed that 25% mentioned well-being under the banner of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), while the other 75% did not mention it at all. If asked about their wellbeing programmes, however, it is very likely that most companies in the latter group would be able to refer to an externally sourced Employee Assistance Programme, or some other provision linked to an occupational health or health and safety function within the business.

Recognising the values of employee wellness to a brand

What are the implications of this? It could be argued that, in mentioning employee wellbeing on their web portals (and putting it under Corporate Social Responsibility), a minority of companies are lifting it from a basic support function to something they would like to be known and rewarded for. These are the companies that recognise the brand value of paying attention to employee wellness, which has benefits for attracting potential recruits (“a great place to work”) and for retaining customer loyalty.

Mentioning well-being on the external website shows that these organisations recognise the value placed on it by customers and employees. Some go further by developing an internal “umbrella” branding for their employee wellness programmes and interventions, so that employees understand how much is being done in this area. However, far too many organisations are proactive and conscientious about specific “duty of care” aspects of wellbeing, without recognising how employee wellness as a whole contributes to company reputation and key performance measures.

Integrating wellness into key business practices

When an organisation takes a strategic, holistic view of well-being and its benefits for both employees and the business, then employee wellness is lifted out of its traditional place in a corner of HR and into the mainstream. It is this “mainstreaming” that is at the heart of integrating wellness into the organisation’s ethos. In such companies, wellbeing modules or themes are integrated into line manager training, leadership development, induction programmes, culture change initiatives and other core programmes and practices.

The motivation for addressing employee wellbeing issues

So what is it that leads an organisation to take this holistic approach? Sometimes there is a natural understanding of the importance of employee wellness, stemming from the core business proposition – as in the case of some of the multinational pharmaceutical companies. In other cases, it may be more specifically down to the vision of the Chief Executive or senior management team. Whatever the underlying stimulus, these are organisations that appreciate the importance of psychological wellbeing for employee morale, motivation, health and happiness. While other organisations are afraid of opening a “Pandora’s Box” of problems, these companies are more concerned about failing to identify and address risks to wellbeing in general, and psychological well-being in particular. For this reason, they undertake regular audits to identify and manage these risks.

With these companies, it’s usually quite easy to see the impact that their employee wellness culture has on direct measures such as staff sickness absence figures and employee retention. It’s also often possible to infer a clear link with overall performance and business results. So how can results-focused leaders in other organisations and sectors be encouraged to lead the way in creating a wellness culture?

The role of senior management

As the figure below shows, the senior leadership need to be drawn in to determine the business metrics that are of central importance to the achievement of the organisation’s main strategic business goals, and that may be expected to improve with improvements in employee wellbeing. To keep them engaged – and to ensure that wellness is embedded into the organisation’s culture – the steps set out below need to be implemented in a way that leads back to a demonstrated improvement in the baseline business measures identified.

Robertson Cooper’s framework for sustainable employee well-being

Once senior managers are convinced that employee wellness matters to business performance, they will lead the way by championing wellbeing initiatives, ensuring that wellbeing is mainstreamed into core organisational processes, and role modelling the leadership behaviours that help to create high levels of wellbeing. Others will then recognise that the focus on wellbeing is more than a duty of care or reputational branding exercise, but that it is there to stay as something the organisation is truly committed to. This sets the best foundation for employee wellness to truly become a core part of any organisation’s ethos.

About Author: Jill Flint-Taylor is a director at leading business psychology company Robertson Cooper.