Although the idea of conducting a workplace wellness assessment may seem like a purely qualitative exercise, wide-reaching data and professional research indicate quantitative goals are affected as well. A Gallup study supports the position that the cost of poor workplace wellbeing negatively impacts an organization's goal achievement and bottom line. These are key takeaways from Gallup's research.
- Upwards of 75 percent of accrued medical costs involved preventable conditions.
- Companies with struggling employees suffered $20 million in lost opportunities for every 10,000 employees.
- Stress and resulting burnout resulted in $322 billion in employee turnover losses.
- Voluntary attrition costs organizations between 15-20 percent in payroll losses.
Quantitative approaches to corporate management often seem compelling at first blush. But once decision-makers dive deep into the numbers, they often discover that stress, anxiety, and feelings of insecurity in the workplace have chilling effects. Those include both the quality of life experience of valued team members and the business’s bottom line. That’s why forward-thinking business professionals take the time to conduct a wellness audit.
What is a Wellbeing Audit?
A workplace wellness assessment or “audit” allows leadership teams to identify areas where their companies are succeeding, in terms of a positive staff, and those spaces that require attention. By conducting a thorough workplace wellbeing assessment, decision-makers can take the data and strategically invest resources into best practices, policies, and employee support. After a comprehensive workplace wellness assessment has been completed, these rank among the top-line items entrepreneurs and other industry leaders possess.
- A clear starting point to take strategic measures to create a holistically healthy workforce.
- Comparative workforce data to include in annual reports, year-over-year
- Information that supports where an organization’s strengths lay.
- Risk areas that can be addressed through a strategic plan.
It’s not uncommon for organizations to leverage the results of their workplace wellness assessment as a way to brand the outfit within an industry. Positioning the organization as forward-thinking in terms of compassionate employee wellbeing typically attracts workers. This can provide a critical advantage in terms of recruiting and maintaining top-tier talents.
How to Conduct a Workplace Wellbeing Assessment
When initiating a workplace wellbeing assessment, it’s important to understand this is a proactive process that often drives healthy change. Corporations such as Pfizer point out that healthy habit regimens in the workplace lead to improved physical and mental health outcomes. The point is not only to minimize issues that hold hard-working team members back. It’s to allow motivated employees to thrive and achieve goals that may have seemed unattainable. These rank among the broad strokes involved in a workplace wellbeing assessment.
- Environmental Assessment: The physical landscape can have a significant impact on health and wellness. By identifying factors and conditions that have an unhealthy or counterproductive influence on employees, corrective measures can be taken.
- Measure Engagement: The degree that staff members are actively focused on tasks, and company goals often trail back to feelings of trust and value. When team members believe their work matters and supervisors are personally invested in their success, productivity levels are generally higher than those who feel underappreciated.
- Analyze and Interpret Data: It takes experienced professionals to identify the sometimes subtle points in largely subjective surveys, polls, and in-person observations. That’s why experts who work with organizations to improve health, wellness, and wellbeing provide management teams with concise summaries and conclusions.
Perhaps the most essential element to a high-level workplace wellness assessment involves crafting questions that are pertinent to niche outfits. These must be tailored to illicit anecdotal and quantifiable data necessary for industry leaders to guide the organization in a healthy direction.
Workplace Wellbeing Assessment Questions
Wellness surveys can be conducted electronically to poll employees about opinions regarding items such as the inner workings of the organization, whether management values their achievements, and stress levels, among others. The goal is to develop a detailed analysis of where the company supports healthy engagement and requires further improvement. Although questions must be altered to fit the workplace and environment, the following rank among the essential baseline items.
- Do you feel comfortable discussing stress and mental health issues in the workplace?
- Does the company provide the resources you need to complete tasks in a timely fashion?
- Do you take work home or put in overtime to meet deadlines?
- What workplace stressors, if any, do you feel need to be addressed?
- Do members of the leadership team communicate expectations effectively?
- Do you believe supervisors are mindfully invested in the wellbeing of employees?
- Does the physical work environment pose a health, safety, or mental health risk to you or others?
- Have you used alcohol or another substance to manage work-related stress?
- How would you describe the professional relationships with colleagues and administrators?
- What steps would you like to see occur to reduce workplace stress?
- What can decision-makers do to improve communication?
- Would programs such as mindfulness and others help you relax and be productive?
Although there are wide-reaching questions that can be integrated into a wellness survey, the goal is to peek into the mindset of everyday people who punch a clock. Their perspective may prove predictive of attrition and lower-than-anticipated productivity.
Workplace Wellbeing Assessment Remain A Vital Tool
Thought leaders often recognize that long-term success requires looking beyond quarterly profit reports and projections. Success stems from the hard work of everyday people who are driven to achieve by a sense of empowerment. The hard data demonstrates that companies that do not invest in workforce wellbeing perform poorly. The truth is that everyone, from the CEO to the person who fields customer phone calls, is impacted by health and wellness. That’s why every outfit needs an annual checkup for wellbeing. For more information, check out our article for "How to Prevent Employee Burnout."
