While some of America’s largest corporations have promised to prioritize employee wellness and health for years now, it appears many have not followed through.
However, it’s not too late for employers to remedy this failure in commitment during this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Now is the time to start curating and nurturing the “next normal” of wellbeing in the workplace.
Prior to the pandemic, employee wellbeing was viewed through the lens of basic benefits like health insurance and maybe unlimited coffee. But as vaccines continue to be distributed across the country, companies will need to modernize their offerings to create an employee-first experience.
One way to do this is to continue embracing the idea of flexibility in terms of work arrangements, scheduling and pay. In fact, employees have indicated they would leave their roles if flexibility was not offered post-pandemic.
Allowing employees to work when and where they want has been found to increase performance and productivity, and the optimal time to make this transition is now.
Creating a more autonomous and self-directed workplace is another way to keep employees satisfied and engaged. Research has indicated that this responsibility falls on managers, and more often than not, they don’t do a good job.
Still, now the workforce has had firsthand experience on managing methods that do a good job of keeping employees engaged. For instance, research from Topia found that 63% of employees said that part of a great employee experience is being trusted to do their job with little supervision.
