Even though wellbeing was not top of the priority list for businesses, recent research has shown that 63 per cent of employers have increased support for their employees in at least one of the areas of mental, financial, physical and social wellbeing.
At one time, health insurance and an employee assistance programme would have been all that was provided for employee wellbeing, but now it is accepted that much more is required to ensure that a negative effect on business is not impacted.
According to a recent report by HRZone, the average worker was absent for 14.6 per cent of their working hours - which represented a loss of 38 days per employee per year.
However, research has shown that 50 per cent of businesses have increased the communications around support available to staff; 44 per cent increased the time made available to directly help staff and 38 per cent extended support to reflect changes requested by employees. A further 34 per cent increased engagement and utilisation of support that was already available, with 32 per cent increasing time to investigate resources to help staff.
The research also showed that 32 per cent of employers extended the support being offered to include families of the employees, whilst 25 per cent provided new employee benefits to give extra support - and 24 per cent increased their investment directly to fund support.
HRZone suggest that the 25 per cent of employers who are providing new employee benefits and the 24 per cent who are funding support directly, should also consider whether their existing benefits are being under-utilised. Any shortfall in the health and wellbeing benefits should be regularly enhanced and updated.
The Covid-19 pandemic has identified the importance of mental health, plus financial, physical and social well-being - in that order of importance - with 48 per cent of employers feeling more responsibility for the mental health of staff than prior to the pandemic. This has resulted in 50 per cent of employers increasing the support that they offer staff expressly for mental health.
