Employee wellbeing, employee happiness, employee engagement, employee experience, employee satisfaction... these are the terms often used interchangeably. While they are related, they don’t mean the same things, and the strategies around how to improve them can be significantly different.
So, what is the difference?
When talking about employee wellbeing, think about it as the way employees’ duties, expectations, stress levels and working environments affect their overall health and happiness.
Organizations need to understand that employee wellbeing encompasses much more than just physical health. Moreover, it is about fewer tangible factors, your employees' mood, and cognition. Above all, employee wellbeing is about understanding your employees from a holistic perspective which can only be achieved within organizations that are employee centric.
Even though it may not be easy to become an employee-centric company and put your people first, these unprecedented times have shown us that such approach is not an option anymore, it’s an absolute must!
When people are in a state of wellbeing at work, they’re able to develop their potential, be productive and creative, build positive relationships with others, better cope with stress, and make meaningful contributions.
7 Dimensions of Employee Wellbeing
According to Prowell, the world’s famous methodology for assessing employee wellbeing, there are 7 major components of employee wellbeing in the workplace which fall into 3 domains: mental, physical and social wellbeing. This is important to remember as many people associate wellbeing with physical health only while wellbeing is much more than that.
Take a close look at the image and take a second to think about which of the components are impacted by the current pandemic.
You quickly realize that all of them are impacted by the crisis.
Regarding physical health, it is clear that our employees’ health is at risk and many organizations have, therefore, implemented new initiatives and communication programs to protect their employees’ health. Additionally, affected by quarantine, many people were also struggling to maintain their healthy life habits.
With the shift to remote work, working environments have also been disrupted. Many employees don’t have adequate remote working conditions, which may affect their employees' productivity levels.
Mental health, with an enormous increase in stress, fear and uncertainty in the workplace, has also been disrupted by the current pandemic. Finally, with social distancing and isolation restrictions, this pandemic has also had a huge impact on our employees’ social wellbeing.
Therefore, employee wellbeing has naturally become one of the main priorities for organizations across the world!
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