Most leaders find it challenging to engage employees despite having a well-being plan in place

The third annual RoundGlass Wellbeing at Work Survey Report, based on interviews with over 400 leaders across 15 industries, offers a roadmap for effective corporate wellbeing programs.

The pandemic brought with it the good, the bad, and the ugly. The good: work from home (WFH) and no commutes, translating into more family time. The bad: uncertainty over health, safety, and employment; extended workdays and blurring of the worklife divide. And the ugly: precipitating mental health issues across countries and populations due to the threat of COVID-19, financial insecurity due to job losses, isolation. In search of a solution, the world turned to wellbeing.

But even as individuals downloaded meditation apps and signed up for online fitness classes, organisations intensified efforts to ensure employees stayed well during these unprecedented times. Corporate wellbeing has long evolved from focusing solely on physical health, with a view to reduce health care costs into a more wholistic approach aimed at helping employees bring their best selves to work — physically, mentally, and socially, while being mindful of the larger community and the environment.

Corporate Care
Although many organisations have been adopting employee wellbeing initiatives over the past decade, wellbeing is now a business priority for many. According to the RoundGlass Wellbeing at Work Survey 2020-21, more than 50% of organisations offer benefits such as health screenings and health awareness or meditation sessions to their employees — a big shift from the days of basic health insurance. However, a large proportion of leaders (65%) find it challenging to engage employees in such plans, with only 24% having an average employee participation rate (EPR) of more than 50%.

40% of organisations have a documented wellbeing plan in place. They are also increasingly allocating budgets for such programs and crafting employee benefit policies that define wellbeing as a core deliverable — 86% of organizations have a dedicated budget for their wellbeing program, regardless of size or industry.

Key Findings
Seventy-one percent of the surveyed organisations said they evaluate the impact of their wellbeing programs. The metrics used by the organisations vary — from employee participation rate, attrition level, and absenteeism to improvement in employees’ clinical outcomes and cost of health insurance claims. While about 50% of organisations measure participation rate, only 22% measure the cost of employee health insurance claims while evaluating program impact.

Engaging employees is the biggest challenge. Fifty-two percent of organizations encourage employees to provide inputs on program content. Sixty-one percent of these organizations had an EPR of more than 25%. Employee involvement in designing programs results in higher participation. Although most organizations consider wellbeing programs an engagement activity, ironically, 65% find engaging employees in initiatives is a major roadblock in implementing a successful wellbeing program.

Sadly, health risk assessment data is not being utilized. Even though two of every three organizations surveyed (67%) conduct health check-ups or health screenings, only 16% of them utilize the data while planning their wellbeing programs.