With many people suddenly losing their jobs, livelihoods, or financial stability to the pandemic, uncertainty and instability continue to influence the post-pandemic workforce. A 2022 Gallup World Poll revealed that 44% of workers surveyed reported feeling significant stress the previous day. The effects of stress on the mind, body, and mood are detrimental, and organizations are acknowledging their responsibility to ensure workplace conditions support employee well-being.

While they have a place in the larger strategy, ad-hoc offerings like annual health fairs or massage events have fleeting results as standalone initiatives. A comprehensive well-being strategy is imperative to combat physical, mental, and emotional health challenges with lasting behavior change. So, what is an employee well-being strategy and how do you create one? Continue on to find out.

Creating a Well-Being Strategy for the Workplace

In this post:

1. Importance of Well-Being in the Workplace

2. What is an Employee Well-Being Strategy?

3. How to Develop a Well-Being Strategy for the Workplace

4. Wellness Initiatives to Include in an Employee Well-Being Strategy

5. Strive Corporate Wellness Programs

Importance of Well-Being in the Workplace

With so much time invested in working and interacting with colleagues, supporting employee well-being is simply the right thing to do. Employers can’t prevent life events or stressors from happening, but they can ensure their workplace has resources to help employees manage it. Providing wellness opportunities that develop mental, physical, and emotional resilience builds a positive culture and promotes productivity, creativity, and innovation in the workplace.

This culture of wellness develops deeper connections amongst employees that improves teamwork and job satisfaction and retention, while reducing healthcare costs, worker’s comp claims, and absenteeism. For these reasons, organizations are viewing workplace wellness not as an amenity, but as a vital business strategy.

What is an Employee Well-Being Strategy?

An employee well-being strategy is a holistic approach to creating a culture of wellness by equipping employees with health education, resources, and activities. Introducing wellness initiatives into the daily lives of an employee population is challenging and requires time and effort to plan, implement, and sustain. A well-being strategy articulates an organization’s overarching vision and commitment to employee wellness.

It includes strategizing for ongoing employee engagement, program growth, and sustainability. Investing in wellness demands more than ad-hoc offerings — it requires frequently assessing the needs and interests of the current population, evolving the strategy, and budgeting for consistent, comprehensive offerings.

Wellness initiatives should address the eight pillars of total well-being: physical, social, emotional, nutrition, financial, spiritual, intellectual, and environmental. A successful well-being strategy offers consistent and cohesive offerings that impact lasting behavior change.

How to Develop a Well-Being Strategy for the Workplace

Effective well-being strategies are championed by senior leadership. They have a pulse on overall business goals and how employee well-being is connected to them. Other roles such as wellness coordinators or workplace wellness committees can be formed to push the strategy forward across multiple departments or locations.

With organizational goals and priorities in mind, leadership chooses success metrics to establish expectations and to leverage when evaluating the overall success of the well-being strategy. Success metrics help track VOI and inform how the strategy should evolve.

Identifying available resources like allocated budget, people, and time, and gathering employee needs and interests guide the strategy. Following implementation, continuous data collection and analysis measures engagement levels and offers strategic guidance.

Wellness Initiatives to Include in an Employee Well-Being Strategy

Routines take time to build, but once they’re established, it’s a priceless investment. Creating consistent opportunities for wellness greatly impacts the success of a well-being strategy, as it’s consistency that leads to routine. Encouraging healthy habit-building routines in an employee population is most effective through educational and interactive elements. For example, a monthly health talk, weekly fitness classes, and a healthy cooking demo every month or quarter demonstrates a commitment to wellness and keeps employees engaged. This looks like:

• Monthly theme – physical health
• Health talk topic – lifelong strategies for healthy living
• Fitness/stress management classes – fitness express, stretch n’de-stress
• Wellness event – healthy cooking demo

Strive Corporate Wellness Programs

The example provided above replicates a Strive corporate wellness program. Our comprehensive approach influences actual behavior change through awareness and engagement. Strive’s fully-burdened pricing model and wraparound delivery makes wellness easy for any and every organization we serve. 15 years of industry experience is infused into our turnkey solutions and fully administered wellness programs.

Book a discovery call with a wellness expert to get guidance, collaborate, or customize your wellness program.