Investment in wellbeing and mental health apps ranks as the number one area in which HR directors expect to increase remote wellbeing expenditure in 2021.
This is according to a report from the Reward and Employee Benefits Association and HR consultancy Mercer Marsh Benefits.
It found employee wellbeing was now seen as integral to achieving employee engagement and mitigating the risk of high staff turnover, recruitment costs, burnout and low productivity.
In total 85% of HR teams said they would increase their focus on employee wellbeing and 84% on the use of flexible working.
The report concludes these two areas will be increasingly important as more firms emerge from the pandemic seeking to maintain the health and wellbeing of their workforce.
It also reveals the top 10 remote wellbeing benefits introduced over 2020 or planned for 2021 are as follows:
• Wellbeing and mental health apps
• Digital or virtual health programmes
• Online GP service
• Benefits portals or benefits digitisation
• Wellbeing portals
• Better signposting of benefits
• Providing homeworking equipment or working from home payment
• Loans for tech
• Virtual networking events
• Wellness hours – time given to employees to dedicate to their wellbeing
