Health promotion strategies are measures and processes aimed at achieving healthy workplaces and employee well-being. Implementing these actions can positively impact employees’ life cycles, but it is crucial to remember that they can also benefit employee’s life outside the workplace. By fostering employee well-being, successful health promotion strategies will also have an overall effective impact on a company’s performance and results.
Keep reading to discover how health promotion strategies can benefit your employees’ well-being and overall company performance.
Strategy approach
When designing health promotion strategies, it is essential to align the actions with the objectives set. These objectives should also be in line with the company’s corporate culture and mission statement so that companies can achieve maximum efficiency.
It is essential to create a flexible strategy, allowing the company to adapt to external circumstances such as economic crises, the results of its main competitors, and internal circumstances related to the individual life of the employees.
The end goal of health promotion strategies is to improve employees’ lives inside and outside the workplace. This includes focusing on the employee experience in a range of areas. Improving employee experience includes:
- Professional development
- Talent management
- Social benefits
- Work environment
- Mental health and well-being
Every company has external customers (people who buy their goods or services). However, employees are also considered internal customers as they need to have a good working experience in the environment. As a company’s most important resource, employees need to feel they work in a safe space and feel supported throughout their work life-cycle. After all, employees are also brand ambassadors for the company during and after their journey at the company.
Benefits of health promotion strategies
There has been a shift in employee needs in recent years, with workers looking beyond traditional benefits. It is not only about improving the work environment but also about taking preventative measures to avoid issues arising in the first place. Employees are a company’s most important assets. Therefore it should be an organization’s number one priority to ensure its workforce is healthy and productive.
There are many reasons why companies should implement health promotion strategies and focus on their employees’ well-being. We want to outline 3 of there, which we think are the most important:
- It is an obligation under the health and safety labor law
- An organization has a corporate social responsibility
- Employees are healthier and more productive
In addition to why organizations should apply well-being strategies, we have summed up 4 key benefits of implementing health promotion strategies in the workplace:
1. Motivation
Motivation at work drives employees to complete their tasks and achieve results. If employees are being taken care of through health promotion strategies by their organization, they will be more productive. As an employee, knowing that you have access to tools, resources and therapy will make you trust the people who have hired you, as they want to take care of you to bring out the best in you.
This also affects them in their lives outside of the world of work. If employees are happy outside the workplace because their mental health is being supported, they will be driven and strive to work better.
2. Team cohesion
Whether we work remotely, on-site, or in a hybrid environment, being part of a team requires efficient communication between employees and managers. In-person or online, this communication helps us build relationships with our peers. If communication is good, so are work processes, as they are likely to flow better and run smoothly. According to the UN’s report on Workplace Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy, strong team cohesion includes:
- levels of trust
- the way people communicate
- use of language
- ability to listen and show compassion
- working effectively together (collaboration)
- supporting each other
Moreover, these relationships are not always about work. If you are on a lunch break or just a break, it is good to speak to colleagues and ask how they are doing (especially if they are new). Health promotion strategies can help employees feel comfortable and more confident, which helps build team cohesion and professional relationships.
3. Improve work environment
Health promotion strategies also benefit the overall workplace environment. Working in a healthy environment leads to satisfied employees. Employees who feel this way about their jobs also act as brand ambassadors for a company, which results in reputational enhancement. A good reputation as a healthy organization also fosters talent attraction, retention, and development. This should be included in the HR department’s KPIs.
If employees work in an environment where they feel confident, have a sense of worth, and identify with its core values, they are more likely to stay in that organization as it protects their mental health.
4. Save health care costs
Employees are an organization’s most important asset. The majority of their lives are spent in the work environment. Therefore caring for employees’ mental health is essential for organizational productivity and growth. If the workforce is healthy and productive, they contribute to saving health care costs.
Mental health sick leave has become a key element when analyzing how health promotion strategies can save health care costs. In a study conducted by Deloitte and Mind, results found that the cost of poor mental health in the workplace has risen by 16% (some £6billion) since 2016. There is also an emphasis on how the shift in the work environment has caused a rise in technostress and burnout.
This is a result of both remote work and presenteeism, as some workers have started to feel isolated and stressed out by the technology they have to deal with when working remotely since the pandemic. On the other hand, workers also suffer from presenteeism, defined as people being physically present at work but functioning below expected productivity and performance levels.
Therefore, organizations must find a healthy balance between different work formats and conduct studies to see which is more beneficial for their workforce. With the help of ifeel’s emotional well-being program for companies, HR managers can receive the right tools and advice to conduct such studies, which will eventually lead to a healthier workforce and, therefore, more productive workers.
Emotional well-being program for companies
At ifeel, we know that work should not disrupt people’s well-being. We strive to help companies support their employees, conveying the idea that our professional role must always be compatible with our health. Our team of psychologists, experts in well-being at work, has created an emotional well-being program for companies that positively impacts talent retention, reduces absenteeism, and tackles employee stress.
In our Resources section, you will find helpful material, such as podcasts, HR guides, or interviews with HR managers. In addition, we have a Psychosocial Risk Factors Template, which you can use to comply with the requirements of the Labor Inspection.
Thanks to our emotional well-being program, your company’s HR managers can receive personalized, data-driven advice on improving the psychological well-being of their teams. In addition, this program offers employees a 360° mental health care service structured at different levels according to their needs. Try our program today to see how it could help you.
We hope you found this post about the benefits of health promotion strategies interesting. If you would like more information about our emotional well-being program for companies, request it, and we will contact your team as soon as possible.
