Workplace Wellness: A Key Component Of The Employee Experience

• A recent research report found that employee wellbeing and EX have risen in strategic importance as employees are recognized as being fundamental to building an agile, successful enterprise.
• Employee wellbeing was also identified as the most recognized benefit of modernizing the workplace. 
• However, measurement of EX hasn’t caught up with the wish of executives to put wellbeing and EX at the top of the agenda.

NTT’s 2020 Intelligence Report “Shaping employee experiences for a world transformed” found that employees are now at the forefront of workplace strategy. Specifically, the report found that “protecting the health and wellbeing of employees has emerged as the number one challenge to optimizing the workplace.”

More importantly, employee wellbeing was also identified as the most recognized benefit of modernizing the workplace.

The Rising Importance of Workplace Wellness

Over the past couple of years, organizations have increasingly focused their efforts on addressing workplace wellness. While strides have been made in this particular area, there is still a lag in executing strategies that best address employee wellbeing. 

The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the rate at which organizations prioritize wellness. 

According to NTT, “employee wellbeing and EX have risen in strategic importance as employees are recognized as being fundamental to building an agile, successful enterprise.

However, while almost 90% of organizations recognize the value of EX and employee wellbeing, well under half are fully satisfied with their EX capabilities.”

Employee wellness is a key component of the employee experience. Organizations hoping to improve their EX need to find ways in which to improve and enhance their employee wellbeing efforts. 

The Organizational Benefits of Employee Wellbeing

Studies throughout the years have found that organizations that support the wellbeing of their employees tend to report higher engagement and productivity levels. 

The 2020 Intelligence Report found that, in addition to enhanced engagement and productivity, “organizations that set the foundation for employee wellbeing and EX will be in a stronger position to rearchitect their businesses to be more agile, responsive and, ultimately, more successful over the longer term.”

For this to happen, organizations need to empower workers to make decisions. When employees are allowed to make decisions, they become more agile, which makes the organization much more likely to pivot when needed. 

As a result of the pandemic, organizations hoping to improve the wellbeing of their employees are focusing on providing them with more choice when it comes to how and when they work. 

“What organizations need to focus on now is empowering employees to make decisions and supporting them with workplace policies and technology that allow them to choose how and where they work. This will go a long way to attracting and retaining talent, improving EX and turning ‘passives’ into ‘promoters’.”

The Key Element That’s Missing from EX and Employee Wellbeing

While organizations are focusing on wellbeing and prioritizing it when it comes to workplace strategy, the report found that there is one key element missing:

Measurement. 

While employee wellbeing is being let down by people’s experience of working environments and workplace support, “measurement of EX hasn’t caught up with the wish of executives to put wellbeing and EX at the top of the agenda.”

The report found that:

• 80.1% of organizations claim to track employee experience of the workplace, but a deeper review of the results indicates this is often anecdotal and unstructured. 
• 62.0% gain a form of workplace feedback via employee surveys, 52.0% via discussion forums. 
• Just 38.3% will align workplace EX feedback to an industry-standard benchmark (e.g. eNPS, Leesman Index). 

Without clear measurements and the right analytics, it’s hard for organizations to determine whether their strategies are working or not. 

To improve EX and wellbeing, and to ensure that the organization is experiencing the desired results, executives need to find effective ways to gather useful data and identify indicators. 

The Role of Standards

The report found that standards such as the WELL Certification and Workplace Wellbeing Charter demonstrate a commitment to employee wellbeing. 

The good news is that 85% of organizations report adhering to at least one industry-recognized workplace wellbeing charter. 

These standards not only help an organization demonstrate that they care about employee wellbeing, but they can also be useful when it comes to measuring and tracking success.