Making wellbeing a competitive advantage in your business

In the last 12-18 months there’s been a lot of awareness around wellbeing, whether that’s mental health initiatives or a focus on agile (flexible) working. More companies are starting to look at the wellbeing of their teams and appreciating that this is no longer a soft benefit, or a nice-to-have, but a real competitive advantage. Companies who invest in the wellbeing of their people are not only winning awards for the wellbeing programs but they’re also beating rival firms when it comes to attracting and retaining talent.

A shoe-in for wellbeing awards

Zappos sell shoes online. Their US office is essentially a call centre. Despite this, they have an 87% retention rate and generated $1bn sales in their first 10 years before selling to Amazon. This is in part due to their incredible team wellbeing program, which includes creating and maintaining a Culture Book; allowing people to bring their full personality to work (reflected in their pet policy and relaxed dress code); going on wellness adventures like zip wiring; offering free meals and weight management classes; having a nap room for team members who need a quick recharge, and even offering free pet insurance.

Doing the numbers

Anderson, Anderson & Brown (AAB) are chartered accountants based in Aberdeen, Scotland. They are currently number 37 in the Sunday Times Top 100 Companies to Work For (based on wellbeing). They have won this award several years running, as a result of their robust wellbeing program, including providing training to managers so they can spot issues around wellbeing; educating teams on how to prioritise good health via an online platform and weekly emails and encouraging people to be active via incentives and nudges in the office. They have reduced their absenteeism rates considerably and have high retention rates as well as winning multiple awards for their people management. AAB don’t have an issue attracting talented new team members to meet their ambitious growth targets.

How can you replicate that success?

Most companies I talk to don’t know how their people are feeling, or if they do it’s because it’s too late. The person concerned is off work, seriously ill, unable to return or it’s become an issue for the lawyers. Either way the cost is huge, whether that’s reputationally, financially or human – or all three. Many companies don’t know how effective current or past initiatives have been, and sometimes confuse perks with wellbeing. An example of a perk is a fruit bowl on the table; an example of a wellbeing initiative is the provision of an online platform that delivers content on how to improve sleep.

Here are some questions to help you start to shape your thinking if you want your company to be a gamechanger when it comes to making wellbeing a competitive advantage in your business:

Insight

Understanding what the challenges are within your organisation. Do you understand how your workforce are feel about their wellbeing? Are you aware of the issues the workforce face?

Budget

How do you know whether you’re getting ROI on your existing wellbeing spend? Do you know how effective your current strategy is and can you easily identify where to put further investment, i.e. what’s working?

Employee engagement and retention

Do you have strategies for measuring engagement and retention? Do you know why employees stay with you and why they leave? It costs £30,000 to hire a new employee in the UK so increasing your employee engagement rate through corporate wellness strategies can quickly pay for itself.

Attracting new talent into your business

The days where companies would compete on corner offices, salaries, bonuses and company cars are over. Wellbeing is rapidly becoming a competitive advantage. Don’t lose the battle to attract talent into your business because you can’t compete.

Knowing where to start

A structured audit will help you prioritise the short, medium and long-term objectives. You can base your investment of time and money on what needs doing first and achieve some quick wins whilst developing linger-term strategic objectives.

The Bodyshot Wellbeing at Work Audit

Our wellbeing at work audit helps you understand what the issues you have across the entire organisation around energy, performance and wellbeing. Our comprehensive report gives you actionable insights into key areas affecting workplace performance, identifying where you need to focus your resources to improve health and wellbeing at work. Making sure you get ROI on your wellbeing spend. The Audit includes a survey that goes out to the whole organisation to understand what the issues are around energy, performance and wellbeing. We use qualitative and quantitative data to product a robust and comprehensive report that identifies where you need to focus your resources.

What’s Next?

Interested in receiving the first chapter of Leanne’s bestselling book Rise and Shine: recover from burnout and get back to your best? Click here to access your immediate download.

About Bodyshot Performance

Bodyshot Performance work with businesses of up to 500 people who want to create a culture of energy, vitality and performance through the business and position wellbeing as a competitive advantage. We intersect the latest science and technology to provide unique solutions to the challenge of wellbeing in the workplace that have a direct impact on the bottom line. Our clients have won awards for wellbeing and recognise it directly improves employee engagement and retention and attracts talent into the business, see our case study link below.

We also work with chronically stressed or burned out professionals to get you back in control of your health and able to do the things you want to do in life.

Find out more about Bodyshot for Business and how we can help you make wellbeing a competitive advantage for your business or send an email to lorraine@bodyshotperformance.com to arrange a free Discovery Session.

To download the AAB case study please click here.

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