Employee Wellbeing and New Ways of Working

Whitepaper

Employee Wellbeing and New Ways of Working

by James L. Creighton, Ph.D.

We have been granted permission to share this whitepaper from US author James L. Creighton with you. Creighton explores how the concepts  of employee wellness and wellbeing apply to employees engaged in new ways of working, especially remote or distributed work.

Why are companies thinking about employee wellness and wellbeing?

Creighton asserts there are two primary reasons that companies offer wellness or wellbeing programs:

1. the costs associated with health problems experienced by employees; and
2. lost productivity, or reduced performance while at work.

Conclusion

According to Creighton, “a growing percentage of companies, particularly large companies now offer wellness programs to their employees. Recently many companies have moved beyond wellness alone – which is focused primarily on physical health, with emphasis on health programs, ergonomics, or other physical characteristics of the work environment — to wellbeing — which also addresses the psychological wellbeing of the individual worker, addressing considerations such as worker engagement, choice/control, work/life balance, financial wellbeing, etc.”

American research “shows that both wellness and wellbeing programs have a considerable return on investment. In particular they cut down dramatically on healthcare costs, as well as absenteeism and presenteeism. Both also contribute to improved productivity. The wellbeing approach has the greatest potential for improving productivity because it takes into account a wider perspective of all the factors that cause an employee to experience wellbeing”

Please download the entire 39 page whitepaper for more information.

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