Wellbeing programmes are “fantastic“ and an underweighted element in employer reward strategies, but organisations have been told they must do better at measuring and understanding their value.
Mizuho Bank head of HR for EMEA Milan Makwana also argued that HR teams did not often have the results to consider if their wellbeing programmes were offering the best outcomes.
Speaking at the London HR Connection event, Makwana said: “I still think we underweight wellbeing in total reward strategy and that’s an area we really should do a better job of, more focus needs to be given on that.
“It’s about measuring the return on investment (ROI) and the impact and regularly making sure that what you are providing is what your people need.
“So getting engagement from people, almost asking them what is missing and coming up with those solutions and then regularly reviewing those solutions,” he said.
Makwana highlighted that failing to act on these could result in potentially in-effective programmes being left in place for many years.
“The problem is its quite sticky; once someone sells you a product or something you’re giving to staff, you stick with it for the next 10 years because we’re busy,” he continued.
“So we need to have a better system of really measuring the ROI, of whether we’re really providing the best support within the company for menopause or is there a better solution?
“Should we be working with professors or a university and getting a different level of care? Which would be better?
“We don’t have those conversations as much because of time and a degree of inertia.”
Identify causes of stress
However, while Alexandra Shoobert, business psychologist at OE Cam, acknowledged the importance of wellbeing programmes, she also highlighted that organisational culture and working demands played a leading role in issues within companies.
“Wellbeing is absolutely fantastic, all of those programmes, but what’s really fundamental that needs to go with it as well is all those causes of stress,” she said.
“It’s great you have all those programmes but if your managers are rewarded in such a way that it is very competitive, they have to put loads of pressure on their employees and that its targets, targets, long hours, or if it’s a very shouty environment, that kind of thing, you can’t just counteract that with a yoga class or online meditation – I’m not dismissing those though.
“But it can be more difficult to talk about why staff are stressed or leaving in high numbers?
“Is it something in perhaps the way managers are behaving?” she added.
