Why Wellbeing Is At The Heart of Company Culture

Regardless of how profitable or what size your business is, it’s your employees that make your business successful. Therefore, building a healthy company culture must be one of your top priorities. A healthy company culture acknowledges the shared beliefs, standards and values that characterize your company’s goals.

In turn, a healthy culture promotes wellbeing, happiness, productivity and as a natural outcome generates results. Any organisation that has a strong culture can expect three things to happen. Employees know how management wants them to respond to any situation. Employees understand that the expected response is the right response and employees know that rewards are available and achievable.

HR Promotes Wellbeing Programmes

HR has a vital role in promoting and maintaining a strong wellbeing culture. According to an in-depth analysis report carried out by REBA, wellbeing programmes are a defining feature of business’ culture, helping to develop resilient, successful organisations for the future.

Often described as the ‘caretaker’ of business culture, HR must live up to this label by carrying out this all-important role ethically. HR teams help build and manage a healthy culture by being a role model for their organisation’s beliefs and values.

Post pandemic the balance of priorities has shifted away from an emphasis on direct productivity programmes to a culture of trust, transparency and openness; it is essential to support one another. Control has given way to trust, and for the most part, employees are rising to the challenge.

HR should focus on building more resilient and adaptive teams but not at the cost of mental health. Close communication is a priority but beyond that connecting with purpose and as a community for the business’s sake is the most critical part of HR’s role in the wellbeing programme.

Current trends suggest that if an overhaul of company culture is required to include wellbeing strategy, the change should come from the top down and not the other way around. A strong tactic is a positive introspection, the art of looking inwards to go forwards.

Purposeful Introspection

Cultivating the purposeful wellbeing culture starts with some introspection from employers and investors. As investors and as business leaders look for a way forward, leading strategist CultureIQ suggests that they take an inward look to identify what strengths their organisation may have to leverage them to create a competitive advantage.

More importantly, be willing to identify the organisation’s weaknesses and close those gaps before gearing up for growth. The following are markers on the cultural framework to check off the list before the economy returns to an upward projection.

•  Rewards without strings – Benefits must support the individual and not be dependent on performance.
•  Dignity and purpose – Must be present at high levels to support planned strategies and emergent requirements.
•  Talent and collaboration – Ensure that you have strong hiring filters and incentives that emphasise values that contribute to the importance of the culture you are creating.
•  Curiosity – Leaders and employees must be curious to maintain creativity and in turn, exclusivity.
•  Execution – Your message must be consistent at every level.
•  Agility – Critical regardless of your unique scenario, it helps leaders understand the organisation’s ability to respond to change.

Identifying your strengths and weaknesses is critical; Now it is possible to lay the foundations for positive change. Progressive leaders will likely realise that they already have the essential ingredients for positive change.

Invest in your Employees

One way to invest in your talent is to show them you’re genuinely interested in their wellbeing; it’s too easy to make the right noises, platitudes are see-through. Put time aside to find out what practical help would benefit the employees. A small amount of time invested can reap huge benefits.

Did you know 46% of Britons suffer money-related stress in the week leading up to payday? Workers often turn to expensive credit to make up the shortfall for everyday expenses, especially during challenging times.

Critically, one in five workers would consider taking a new job in the same role if it gave them access to their already earned wages before payday. In a survey conducted for Glassdoor, the priority for applicants looking to work for any company post-pandemic is that the company values align with their own and whose mission they can support.

Proving that talent investment is an ongoing task and creating a positive and inclusive company culture is only half the battle. By conducting regular surveys and staff questionnaires, you gain insight into what is essential on a day-to-day level. This information is vital for maintaining productivity, growth and staff retention.

Staff Retention

A critical issue that organisations face is how to retain the employees. Companies would do well to always anticipate impending shortages of talent and a natural fall back of employees with the specialised competencies needed to stay ahead of the competition.

Employers that successfully manage employee retention in both good times and downturns will stand a greater chance of weathering such shortages.

A report written by SHRM employees identified compensation and pay as one of the top engagement and retention factors.

Recovering from any crisis often means it’s challenging to award pay increases. Still, it is possible to incentivise your staff by allowing early access to funds that employees have already earned by introducing FastPAYE.

FastPAYE provides a sustainable way for you to deliver a financial wellbeing strategy, by letting employers decide when, how often and how much of their salary their employees can access. In turn, employees can enjoy financial wellbeing.

The design for this system has the modern workforce in mind. Flexible wage management helps employees better manage their finances and marks you out as a highly progressive employer. The key benefits that differentiate FastPAYE from competitors are:

•  It’s ethical, and it is not a loan.
•  The employer is in full control.
•  Increased morale and productivity is a by-product.
•  Increase applicant pool.
•  Importantly we are the only flexible payment system that is not a loan and does not charge employees.

Support your companies’ wellbeing strategy by downloading the app and starting your journey to success by creating a better company culture.