How to Build an Employee Wellbeing Program

Employee wellbeing schemes can be an effective way to help staff feel valued and recognized for the hard work they do in their role. This is closely linked to how happy professionals feel in their job and whether or not they are going to look for options with other businesses.

However, building the right wellbeing program that is suited to your company and the employees within it is a crucial part of making sure it's effective and that it has a positive impact.

Here are some questions to ask yourself before deciding on what employee wellbeing program will best fit with your company:

How many staff will be included?

This is a big deciding factor on what scheme will be best suited to your employees. The programs that are designed for people with 100s of staff won't be as effective for a start-up with just a handful. It will also have a significant impact on how much you pay to get the rewards.

Why now?

Looking at the reasons why you are considering a health and wellbeing program for employees can be a good way of helping to design the right scheme for you. It may be that you've had a particularly good financial year and you want to put some of that back into employees or perhaps staff turnover and morale has been highlighted as a big money sink. Whatever your reasons are for creating a scheme, it's important that these are identified before going ahead with such a program.

Where are staff located?

If you are a company with multiple offices in different cities, or even countries, it will have an impact on your wellbeing scheme. For those who have a singular location, it can be much easier to have agreements with local companies to give employee discounts for gyms or restaurants, for example. In contrast, if you have employees spread out, you'll want to build a program around national or online discounts.

What are your key motivators?

What do you want your scheme to do? Make people happier? Reduce staff turnover? Make a healthier workforce? Deciding which of these is the most important to you will help you focus your wellbeing program. Speaking to employees or their managers can be an effective way of deciding which of these would be most appreciated by your staff.

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