Creating a sense of belonging and offering continuous development to staff is critical to improving workforce wellbeing, according to Wade Larson, chief human resources officer at Wagstaff.
Speaking at the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development’s annual conference, Larson offered a perspective of how US employers have dealt with wellbeing issues during the pandemic going further than healthcare needs.
Larson (pictured) explained the pandemic had exacerbated issues that had been affecting the US workforce for 30 years and had now triggered a massive labour shortage.
“Here we have business that’s advancing just technologically and we’re in need of an advanced workforce,” Larson said.
“However, our education system is misaligned in preparing them with skills and when they walk out of our education system they’re not prepared to meet the needs of business.
“And so effectively, we’re having situations where we’re failing our employees before they even enter the workforce.”
Workers left anxious and stressed
According to Larson, while technological advancements have left workers feeling anxious and stressed due to concerns around the security of their job, the pandemic has meant they also feel isolated, disjointed and disconnected.
“They may not have any evidence whatsoever to make them feel that their job is in jeopardy but they may be thinking to themselves: ‘You know what? I better get out of here before something happens’,” Larson said.
“Employees want a sense of belonging. That’s what they’re craving. They need a friend. They want to engage and they want to be part of the solution.
“We as employees are trying to fix these problems ourselves and for whatever reason we haven’t reached out to employees to say ‘help us, be part of this.'”
Continuous employee growth
But Larson added continuous employee growth also needed to be an integral part of the employee experience as well.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that we have to have them on the fast track for promotion but continuous growth is a major part and if they don’t find that they belong, that they’re connected, that they’re growing, they’re going to question why not and where should I go,” she continued.
“Business has changed. People have changed. And so we have been working the same model in HR for the past 25 years and so we shift into what we’re calling HR 3.0 this next phase, we’ve got to adapt how we’re doing HR to really connect to this world.
“And so as we create this new model for HR, we’ve got to plan the next way to level up and to connect to our employees in order to help them achieve their best and wellbeing is at the centre of that.”