How can employee well-being trends in 2024 be applied to the workplace to create a healthy and enjoyable work environment?
The well-being of workers in companies or, more simply put, well-being at work is a scenario that involves different aspects. On the one hand, the absence of negative impacts on the psychological well-being of employees wears down their stability and seriously interferes with their health and performance.
It also includes, of course, the presence of positive impacts on their daily circumstances in the company, which relate to motivation, comfort, alignment between their task and their values, and, of course, relationships with their colleagues.
Workers’ well-being in the workplace: prevention of occupational risks
Life implies risk; therefore, in all jobs, we are exposed to a series of occupational risks that can affect our health and the quality of our work. These are a variety of factors that are sometimes very obvious and sometimes go unnoticed but can endanger our physical and psychological vulnerability.
This puts us on a significant track when talking about the well-being of people at work. To protect people and improve work performance, it is crucial to identify the most critical occupational risks, including psychosocial risk factors, to which our company’s employees are subjected. Prevention gives employees security because it helps avoid problems and, at the same time, gives the feeling that there is someone concerned about the welfare of workers in the company.
Employee well-being trends in 2024: psychosocial factors to work
There are multiple psychosocial risk factors at work. Not all of them are equally apparent, not all are present in the same way in all companies, and not all compromise in the same way employees’ well-being in companies.
To cushion their effect and carry out a real preventive strategy in the workplace, it is necessary to identify them, detect which aspect of the organization they are related to, measure them as far as possible, and, of course, have the support of psychologists with expertise in occupational health to address their effects. Today this is more accessible than ever thanks to emotional well-being programs for companies such as the one offered by ifeel to its employees.
Some psychosocial risk factors are related to purely organizational aspects, such as a corporate culture that encourages aggressive competition among employees. Others are more logistical, such as the influence that the characteristics of the facilities have on people (decoration, temperature, furniture distribution, materials, location of the office…).
In this sense, we must never lose sight of tasks that may be pending to enhance the welfare of employees in companies effectively. Therefore, we cannot say that for the company, it is essential to have a work environment of respect, collaboration, and companionship but then force people to step on each other and compete in a toxic way.
Nor can we say that we are very concerned about people’s comfort if we do not renew materials, if employees work in overcrowded conditions or if we move the company’s headquarters to a location inaccessible to many.
Employee well-being trends in 2024
1. Create an employee well-being plan
Employee well-being in companies is not an abstract ideal to aspire to but a reality whose fulfillment is the shared responsibility of both employees and the organization. Therefore, employees should encourage their professionalism and have reasonable expectations about what the company can do for them regarding well-being.
One of the critical employee well-being trends in 2024 is to have an employee wellness plan in place for the success of any company. For its part, the company must be aware of the impact of work on people’s health and not leave health care to improvise structured around good intentions. On the contrary, it must put in place a well-designed, evaluated, and executed strategy to care for the well-being of workers and seek the advice of the appropriate professionals.
2. Having professionals in the field of psychology
Although companies have increasingly powerful and well-prepared Human Resources departments, not all of us are perfect, and not all of us can meet the needs of the teams in our charge at all times.
For this reason, and especially when it is detected that there are significant areas of employee well-being in companies that need a rethink, it is essential to rely on those who can best deal with these issues: psychologists specializing in well-being within organizations.
This is precisely why ifeel’s emotional workplace well-being platform for companies has been designed by these professionals and includes an area of specialized, data-driven support for HR managers to help them perform their daily tasks even better.
3. Specific well-being actions
It is essential to have a strategy that starts from a good exploration of employee needs and characteristics and is well executed and evaluated to be effective for decision-making to take care of employee well-being in companies.
A good tool in the initial phase of the strategy can be to use some kind of work environment survey to find out employees’ perceptions of the work environment.
Subsequently, these decisions will respond, where possible, to what the employees express. In all likelihood, this will have to do with:
- Work methodologies and processes
- Timetable distribution
- Economic conditions
- Space organization
- Internal communication dynamics
- Reward employees financially and with tools that favor their professional development.
Suppose this is done correctly, realistically, and maintaining a smooth communication channel with its true protagonists (the employees). It is highly likely to favor the internal and external reputation of the company and the much-needed attraction, development, and retention of talent within the workforce.
It is also vital that there is room for employee social benefits within the company’s strategies as part of employee well-being trends in 2024. Such as decisive measures aimed at recognizing their work and making their lives easier in a way that is not directly economic but effective.
Up-to-date HR departments
As part of employee well-being trends in 2024, HR managers must keep updating their training and the tools they have at their disposal to continue to foster employee mental health. Staff members’ needs and characteristics vary from one moment to the next, but they also change over time. Wellness strategies must take this into account and be adaptable.
This is particularly important in complex social and economic times, highlighting the importance of good health, underlining the factors that deteriorate it, and stressing organizations’ influence in supporting it.
Fortunately, this problem is becoming less and less stigmatized, although there is still a lot of ground to be gained in this respect in the workplace. Companies that are already doing so are seeing in the short, medium, and long term how absenteeism is reduced, talent is retained, and the working environment within the company improves.
Caring for emotional well-being in organizations
At ifeel, we work to help companies progress by committing to employee well-being. To achieve this, our team of psychologists, experts in well-being at work, has created an emotional well-being program for companies that brings relevant benefits to the entire team, including those responsible for Human Resources.
Do you have a role within your organization’s Human Resources department? We know these managers perform a job that significantly impacts the company’s results. That’s why, through our program, they can receive personalized, data-driven advice on improving the psychological well-being of their teams. Try our program now to see how it could help you.
This program offers all employees a complete mental health care service from which they can benefit differently depending on their needs. Those who wish can access an online therapy service with one of our psychologists, specialized in cases such as theirs, or interact with one of our professionals to receive emotional support in a more specific circumstance that concerns them.
In addition, in our Resources section, you can find different materials, such as podcasts, HR guides on various topics (e.g., employee experience or how to design a good HR strategy), or interviews with key HR leaders. In addition, we have a Psychosocial Risk Factors Template, which you can use to comply with the requirements of the Labor Inspectorate.
We hope this post about employee well-being trends in 2024 has been helpful. If you want more information about our emotional well-being program for companies, simply request it, and we will contact your team as soon as possible.
