A solid remote wellbeing strategy can increase retention, focus, and attendance. Because of how these factors impact productivity and engagement, more organisations are looking for ways to improve remote employee wellbeing.
Gone are the days when wellbeing programs were just a perk or something nice to have. Today, they are an integral component of people strategies in many organisations. This is partly due to the enormous strides in occupational health research that have demonstrated employees need to be both happy and healthy to be efficient in their jobs.
But what does this mean for you and your business? Well, if you don't have a remote wellbeing program, we recommend starting small to get an idea of what initiatives will benefit your employees most. Then, as your business changes, you can adapt the plan to adjust for the changing headcount.
Even when the majority of your team is based in an office, we recommend choosing a remote wellbeing program. But why? Your employees have busy lives and likely won't have time to visit the gym regularly. So working out at home or listening to a meditation or webinar on the go is much better than nothing at all.
Perkbox not only includes a wellbeing platform, but also thousands of discounts, deals, and freebies on wellbeing products. Additionally, if you want to build up a culture of celebration within your organisation, the points-based reward and recognition platform would be very helpful too.
10 steps to build a remote wellbeing program include.
This is a necessary step, regardless of the change you want to make in your organisation. Senior leaders and stakeholders must be on your side as they make the financial decisions and, ultimately, have the last say on where the company money is spent.
Before approaching them, it's a good idea to talk to other colleagues who may have previously submitted proposals. Something else to consider is gathering additional insight from supervisors or managers as they can vouch for why a wellbeing program is needed for their teams.
Send out a survey with a few questions asking how your employees feel about their wellbeing and what they need help with. You can also invite people to give one-on-one feedback. Don't forget to cover the three main areas of wellbeing, which are physical, emotional, and financial. When you have established what your employees want, you're in a much stronger position to support their health in a meaningful way.
The three main data points for your baseline measurements are: absence rates, staff turnover rate, and wellbeing survey responses. Once you have these baseline measurements you can calculate the impact of your remote wellbeing program.
Build a roadmap of your actions and formally document goals. Linking the program to existing company initiatives and demonstrating a healthy ROI will add extra credibility.
A simple plan might look something like this:
Next, research the cost per item. One thing to remember when planning your budget is to compare it to the cost of not launching a wellbeing program. This could include the cost of high absenteeism or declining remote employee engagement levels.
By this stage you should know what your at-home employees want and how much of your budget you can allocate. Now, it’s time to put the wheels in motion and solve the problems.
Your updated plan should now look something like this:
Look across your departments and identify people who would be willing ambassadors in each team to champion wellbeing. Ideally, you’d have one person per team that meets over video calls regularly. They can talk to their team about the initiatives you’re launching while opening the floor for feedback.
Put simply, if your teams don’t know about the remote wellbeing program, they won’t use it.
Some promotional ideas include:
Challenges are also a great way to make people aware of your remote wellbeing program. At Perkbox, we have a running club and occasionally introduce new competitions, such as a burpee challenge. Fortunately, there are plenty of apps that support these physical wellbeing challenges. Strava, for example, is very useful for setting up a running community.
Depending on your preference or how other initiatives are tracked, let a set amount of time pass before measuring the impact of the remote wellbeing program — this could be every 3 months or so.
You can also track it alongside other elements of your business. Have you seen productivity increase, for example? Or have managers anecdotally said morale has improved? These are just two examples of measurements that demonstrate the impact of a remote wellbeing program.
Report back to your people by sharing success stories. And, of course, don’t forget to celebrate your hard work!
Starting a remote wellbeing program is daunting as there are so many factors to consider. Generally, when companies start anew or are in the process of increasing their wellbeing offerings, they use all-in-one solutions as they provide the most value for money.
Perkbox, for example, focuses on the three core areas of wellbeing —financial, social, and physical. All features can be accessed from the app, so it doesn't matter if your employees are in the same office, or on the other side of the world. Perkbox has both a local and international reach.
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