An author of a book on performance management — The Transformational Lens — and a mentor to many aspiring leaders, Yugandhar Penubolu is also the founder and CEO of Winzard Solutions Private Limited, which is a B2B Strategic HR firm. This SaaS platform offers software-based modules that cater to the talent and performance development needs of several sectors including Service, IT, Finance, and Manufacturing. Yugandhar and Anand Joseph (Co-founder at Winzard) aim to offer a range of comprehensive modules and programs to aid in performance management, talent reviews, learning management and development of workforce synergies. The platform enables employers and employees with real-time analytics and evaluation. Winzard’s tie up with Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad for research and psychometric analysis has helped immensely in building concepts for the development of modules.
The well-being of employees is an important element of an organization. It plays a major role for the workforce to stay engaged with the firm and sticking around in the near future. Adverse employee well-being is the primary reason for disengagement at work and disconnection with the results or outcome.
Factors impacting the wellness of employees
Contrary to the popular notion, it is not always the mental state of the employees that is responsible for adverse well-being. An employee could feel unsafe due to various other reasons such as workplace, colleagues, policies, restrictions, and even personal reasons.
Job insecurity, challenging deadlines, and office politics hamper employees’ mental health. The workforce may also feel uncomfortable due to the culture where there is politics, bullying, harassment, or even discrimination. Poor wellbeing may also be due to grievances that are unheard, employees feeling isolated or unimportant. Another important factor is that they could be doing a job that is against their professional standards, calibre, or expectations and hence feel unsatisfied.
Adverse wellbeing is often responsible for reduced focus, a decline in productivity, conflict at work, and even employee attrition!
The relevance of holistic well-being
Hence, analyzing and understanding how employees are feeling both from the physical and psychological points of view is extremely important. The focus of the organization can no longer be limited to the traditional benefits like incentive and motivational events. In the present times, firms need to consider their employees’ holistic well-being in order to make them feel valued and respected.
The companies need to be supportive of their professional as well as personal life and ensure them the requisite work-life balance.
From providing good physical infrastructure, leisure rooms, to introducing flexible policies; organizations are undertaking various initiatives for the holistic wellbeing of their employees. Some even help employees with professional and psychological counseling facilities. It was highlighted in the research by The Josh Bersin Company that organizations with healthy and positive work culture are 2.2 times more likely to surpass financial targets and 3.2 times more likely to retain employees.
A culture that forges robust relationships, fosters a flexible working environment, career development opportunities, and open communication could lead to resilient, satisfied and engaged employees invested in the organization’s success. Organizations that priorities employee well-being enjoy a competitive advantage in the market. It further helps them retain the existing workforce as well as attract new talents.
In order to ensure the holistic well-being of the employees, firms can follow the enclosed roadmap-
Identify the issues
The first step is to identify the pain points of the employees. As per McKinsey’s report, 47% of employees feel anxious when there is a communication gap from their firms, especially about the future. Hence, organizations should communicate and analyze what issues are faced by them.
Understand the source of the issues
Once you have an idea about the challenges they are facing, try to identify the source of these issues. The source may be different at different groups in the company. This step is important and will help you in coming up with the best possible solution to resolve the adversity.
Plan of action
The next stage is to devise a plan of action. Keeping into consideration the roadblocks; carve out viable solutions that would help the employees overcome the barriers.
Assign responsibilities for implementation
Now is the time to allocate responsibilities for the implementation of the solutions. The approach to resolving the issues faced by the employees needs to be extensive and robust. This would require a collaborative effort from the leaders as well as the employees.
Communicate about the action plan
It is imperative that you communicate with the employees that you are putting in your best foot forward to resolve the challenges they are facing. Communicating high level action plans gives employees the reassurance that the organization values them and is trying its best to ensure the situation is sorted soon so that they have a positive and nurturing environment to work in.
Follow up and review
Following up with the employees on the implementation, effectiveness of the solution is essential. This will give the organization an idea if the plans are improving the wellbeing quotient, if you were able to meet their expectations or if a detailed review is required. Once you have the feedback, revisit your plan, identify the shortcomings and take corrective action.
Summing Up!
Over the period of time, Leaders have understood the relevance of the holistic approach to ensure the well-being of their workforce. However, change does take place and takes time. Organizations could employ tools such as Winzard Workforce Wellbeing to evaluate the wellbeing quotient of their workforce and design holistic strategies accordingly!