What is Employee Wellbeing? Statistics and Trends For 2023

We’ll spend almost 90,000 hours at work in our lifetime so it makes sense to spend this in an environment that’s good for our health and wellbeing, that motivates us to do our best work, and that leaves us feeling energised.

Employee wellbeing plays a big part in the overall employee experience and can impact factors like employee engagement, retention and productivity. Promoting positive wellbeing should be a priority for everyone, yet many organisations are missing out on an employee wellbeing strategy that meets the challenges and needs of a modern, hybrid workforce.

To better arm businesses with all they need to cater to their employees’ wellbeing, we’ve created this guide to discuss: what is employee wellbeing? Why is it important and how can you measure it?

Let’s take a look at insights and initiatives to inform your 2023 employee wellbeing strategy and create a more positive workplace for everyone. 

What is Employee Wellbeing?

Employee wellbeing is defined as the overall mental, financial health and physical health of your employees. There are strong links between employee wellbeing and employee engagement, productivity and retention. Employee wellbeing can be affected by factors like leadership, workload, and colleague relationships.

Promoting workplace wellbeing creates an environment where people can thrive. Wellbeing is commercially important too; organisations that invest in staff wellbeing report an increase in engagement levels, productivity, and performance.

However, when employee wellbeing is neglected we see a huge personal and economic impact; 17 million working days were lost to stress-related absence in the last 12 months.

Why is Employee Wellbeing Important?

Employers have a duty of care to support the health and wellbeing of their people at work. This includes carrying out risk assessments and making sure the work environment is safe. However, there are many more reasons to invest in a holistic employee wellbeing strategy.

Positive wellbeing leads to reduced stress and burnout, lower absence rates, increased productivity, and better employee retention. And workplace wellbeing has an impact on colleagues’ lives outside of work, too; a survey by Indeed showed that negative wellbeing can affect peoples’ self-confidence, quality of life, and energy levels.

How does employee wellbeing influence employee engagement?

Research shows that employee engagement and wellbeing are linked. When employees are engaged, their risk of burnout reduces and their productivity improves. On the other hand, when employees feel stressed out or isolated at work they are likely to lose motivation and become disconnected from the company, which impacts overall engagement levels.

How did Covid-19 affect employee wellbeing?

The Covid-19 pandemic and the shift to working from home brought employee wellbeing to the forefront. Employers recognised wellbeing as a critical factor in attracting, retaining, and engaging colleagues and began to invest in it. Simultaneously, more time at home prompted employees to reflect on the importance of their health and wellbeing. Many chose to improve their work-life balance by changing roles or re-establishing boundaries. 

Discussions around quiet quitting took this even further as employees chose to reject ‘hustle culture’ in favour of clocking off on time and protecting their mental health.

Employee Wellbeing Statistics for 2023

• Healthy employees are 59% more likely to be engaged at work (MetLife, 2022)
• 62% of employees would rather speak to a robot than their manager about mental wellbeing (Oracle, 2020)
• Poor mental health affects productivity in 1 in 5 employees (Champion Health, 2022)
• 35% of employees believe stress at work has a negative impact on them (Champion Health, 2022)
• 55% of HR professionals in the UK believe supporting employee wellbeing has been made more difficult by remote working (CIPD, 2021)
• 85% of organisations increased wellbeing support during the Covid-19 pandemic (Harvard Business Review, 2021)

Employee Financial Wellbeing Statistics for 2023

• One in ten UK adults feel hopeless about their financial circumstances (Mental Health Foundation, 2022)
• 80% of UK employees believe that stress about financial wellbeing negatively impacts their performance (YuLife and YouGov, 2022)
• 66% of employees feel uncomfortable discussing financial worries with their employer (YuLife and YouGov, 2022)

2023 Employee Wellbeing Trends

Employee wellbeing is an area of the employee experience that continues to evolve as new trends, challenges, and situations crop up. Initially, the focus was very much on supporting employees’ physical wellbeing. However, the Pandemic prompted a move towards mental wellbeing which has continued since.

Now, organisations are taking a more holistic approach to wellbeing to incorporate physical wellbeing, mental wellbeing, financial wellbeing, and community wellbeing.

The leading wellbeing trends for 2023 include:

• Supporting financial wellness
• Adapting wellbeing plans for hybrid work
• Supporting women’s wellbeing at work
• Tackling stress and burnout

1. Supporting financial wellness 

Support for financial wellbeing must be an integral part of 2023 workplace wellbeing strategies. The cost of living crisis is putting pressure on us all. Rising mortgage payments, interest rates, and energy costs are increasing overall expenditure and employees are looking to their employers for help. Financial worries affect performance and productivity too; 80% of UK employees believe that stress about money negatively impacts their performance at work.

Financial wellbeing initiatives can range from financial help like one-off payments, salary increases, and help to pay energy bills, to non-financial incentives such as flexible working, free meals and snacks, or financial planning workshops. Keep reading for more ideas to boost employee financial wellbeing.

Keep reading for more ideas to boost employee financial wellbeing this year

2. Adapting wellbeing plans for hybrid work 

Working from home brings many benefits such as an improved work-life balance and greater flexibility. However, it also challenges HR and line managers to support remote employee wellbeing.

Remote and hybrid workers are at risk of feeling lonely or isolated at work, despite having more ways to connect than ever. To prevent loneliness, line managers should check in regularly with team members to spot signs of stress or disengagement and ensure colleagues can have meaningful interactions at work.

Remote workers can also feel the need to be responsive out of hours, to prove they are working hard from home. This pressure can increase levels of stress and guilt and leave employees feeling demotivated. Help avoid this by encouraging employees to set boundaries between work and home life. For example, a short walk before and after work helps simulate the commute and is a chance to decompress.

Read on: 7 effective wellbeing plans for remote workers

3. Supporting women’s wellbeing at work

Supporting women’s wellbeing issues will become a key driver of employee engagement and wellbeing in 2023. More than 2000 organisations including Co-op, Tesco, and Royal Mail have signed the Menopause Workplace Pledge, but more action will be needed in 2023 to stop women leaving work altogether due to symptoms.

Organisations can improve women’s wellbeing at work by:

• Rethinking office spaces to include elements like closer parking spaces, transparent offices, and temperature-controlled areas. Sharespace and Hootsuite are great examples.
• Adapting hybrid working policies to make it easier for women to flex their schedules around doctors’ appointments or adjust their start time following a broken night’s sleep (a common symptom of menopause).
• Introduce specific wellbeing policies like menopause and menstruation policies which outline the support on offer and remove stigma and shame around women raising these issues with line managers.
• Offer training and support for line managers to normalise conversations about women’s wellbeing issues, and signpost colleagues to the right support.

Our guide to women’s wellbeing at work is packed with ideas to create inclusive workplaces for women.

4. Tackling stress and burnout

Rates of stress, burnout, and anxiety are at record levels, with political and economic uncertainty piling on the pressure. In 2023, employees will look to leaders and line managers to act with compassion and provide meaningful ways to combat workplace stress.

Hybrid working can help reduce stress by removing the commute, and giving employees flexibility over when and where they work. However, the downside of working from home is that people may struggle to switch off and managers can miss out on the visual cues of stress such as behaviour changes or colleagues repeatedly staying late.

Regular check-ins can help overcome this by detecting signs of stress and creating a safe space for colleagues to share concerns. Managers should also lead by example to encourage positive habits. For instance, blocking out time for breaks or uninterrupted work, or reducing the number of emails sent after hours.

Our article shares advice to help managers recognise and reduce stress at work

How to Assess Employee Wellbeing

At People Insight, we recommend our THRIVE™ model to assess organisational wellbeing. THRIVE™ is the foundation of our employee wellbeing surveys and provides a robust measure of wellbeing based on the following outcomes:

• Enjoyment & flow – To what extent do employees enjoy and find positive absorption in their work?
• Resilience – How well can employees remain buoyant and productive in the face of difficulties?
• Energy & self-efficacy – How energised and confident do employees feel?

There are a range of workplace demands and resources that can promote positive wellbeing or bring about negative wellbeing. THRIVE™ breaks these down into four factors, with sub-factors within each.

Wellbeing surveys based on THRIVE™ include survey questions for each factor and sub-factor to understand what is driving your wellbeing score.

1. Individual

• Personal Role
• Demographics

2. Climate and Culture

• Relationships
• Fairness
• Values

3. Organisational Processes

• Managed change
• Support
• Employee health and wellbeing processes

4. Role

• Control
• Clarity
• Workload

How to Run an Employee Wellbeing Survey

Staff wellbeing is best measured through a survey. An employee wellbeing survey is an anonymous way of collecting employee feedback about their wellbeing, how supported they feel at work, and what help they need. You can run a stand-alone wellbeing survey, a short pulse survey, or include a section in your engagement survey. As explained above, People Insight’s wellbeing surveys use the THRIVE™ framework to assess organisational wellbeing.

Hit play to hear Kate Pritchard explain how THRIVE™ helps measure all aspects of wellbeing.

https://youtu.be/EXoLds3yP1o

Employee Wellbeing Survey Questions

It is important to ask the right questions in your wellbeing survey, to get the most meaningful date. THRIVE™ provides a comprehensive set of wellbeing survey questions, although sometimes these need to be tailored to the context of an organisation.

Below are example employee wellbeing survey questions from the THRIVE™ model.

1. [My organisation] does enough to support workplace health and wellbeing

This question measures the resources and support on offer to colleagues. A low score for this question could mean you need to increase the resources on offer, or better tailor these to colleague needs. Or, if you have a wide range of wellbeing initiatives in place, a low score may indicate that employees are simply not aware of what’s available or how to access help.

2. If I was experiencing poor mental health I would feel confident to raise it with someone at work

People often feel embarrassed about raising mental health issues with a manager or colleague. This can prevent people from speaking up, and further worsen their struggles. To tackle this, some organisations have employee mental health first-aiders that colleagues can approach if they are struggling. Others provide training for line managers to help them handle conversations about mental health and normalise asking for help.

3. I can comfortably cope with my workload

High workloads, excessive pressures, or tight deadlines are a common cause of workplace stress. Often, employees feel the need to work long hours to fulfil their responsibilities but may feel uncomfortable admitting this. Remote working has also made it harder for line managers to pick up on signs that colleagues are overloaded. This survey question identifies whether excessive workloads are an issue in your organisation and whether this varies by particular groups or departments.

4. I feel valued and recognised for the work that I do

Reward and recognition are key drivers of employee engagement and can influence employee wellbeing too. When done right, employee recognition can improve wellbeing by making employees feel motivated, valued, and supported. On the other hand, when staff are demotivated it leads to an increased number of sick days and lower productivity. Feedback from employees about recognition can help inform where more support is needed, to help employees feel valued.

5. I make an effort to maintain my wellbeing

Most employee wellbeing survey questions identify areas for employers to act on. However, it is equally important to understand whether employees are taking ownership of their health and wellbeing. This question is a good measure of personal accountability for wellbeing. We recommend following up with an open-text comment so employees can expand on their responses. Their comments will indicate whether this is an area that the organisation can influence, for example, are high workloads leaving people feeling drained?

How to Improve Employee Wellbeing (By Creating an Employee Wellbeing Strategy)

To improve wellbeing at work, it is important to first consult staff and understand the pressure points in your organisation. As discussed above, an employee wellbeing survey based on a model like THRIVE™ will assess the current state of wellbeing and highlight where support is needed. Once your survey results are in, use the insights to guide your employee wellbeing strategy.

3 steps to create an employee wellbeing strategy

Improving staff wellbeing requires a joined-up, holistic approach based on a wellbeing strategy.

To create an effective employee wellbeing strategy, you must first listen to your people’s needs with a wellbeing survey. Then use your results to understand the pain points and where support is needed. These will help shape your wellbeing strategy.

Follow these steps to create an effective employee wellbeing strategy:

1) Agree on your goals for employee wellbeing

A comprehensive employee wellbeing strategy starts with a meaningful goal. This is usually based on HR data such as employee retention rates and absenteeism, and insights from your employee wellbeing survey results. Perhaps employees reported high levels of stress & burnout. Or maybe employees feel that poor wellbeing is impacting their performance. Your goals for wellbeing will be unique to your organisation but should be focused on creating a sustainable and healthy workplace. Goals should follow the SMART model so you can measure progress and success.

2) Incorporate all aspects of wellbeing

To best support your people in a hybrid working world, your employee wellbeing strategy should reflect the full range of wellbeing needs. The different types of wellbeing are defined as:

Mental wellbeing – These are initiatives that support people’s psychological, emotional, and social wellbeing at work. For example, offering access to counselling, introducing meeting-free days, or holding workplace meditation sessions. You might want to consider providing access to mental health resources – you can even get some integrated into Slack, which is perfect for remote or hybrid staff.

Physical wellbeing – This means helping employees make healthy lifestyle choices, avoid preventable conditions, and maintain high energy levels by offering things like healthy meals/snacks, subsidising gym memberships, or encouraging walking meetings.

Financial wellbeing – Financial wellbeing is about feeling in control of your finances, being able to pay your bills, dealing with unexpected costs, and saving for the future. Initiatives could include financial education support, perks and benefits that help employees save money, or updating your company pension scheme to provide long-term financial security. Watch our webinar for advice and insights from StepChange debt charity about financial wellbeing support.

Community wellbeing – Community wellbeing means the social, economic, environmental, cultural, and political factors that help communities flourish. For organisations, it’s about how they protect and support the communities around them, and how they care for their employees outside of work. Offering healthy meal choices in the office canteen is great. However, community wellbeing extends this by ensuring all employees can also access fresh produce at home. Many organisations also offer volunteering days, on top of annual leave, to encourage people to give back to local causes.

3) Design wellbeing initiatives to achieve your employee wellbeing goals

Now that you have agreed on your outcomes for your wellbeing strategy, come up with initiatives to help achieve these.

Start by exploring the results of your wellbeing survey. Look for ideas in your Key Driver questions and your free-text comments. Key Driver questions are a great starting point because these are the areas with the biggest impact on employee wellbeing. By improving these, you are likely to improve employee wellbeing.

Employees are another great source of inspiration for wellbeing support. Encourage line managers to discuss ideas with their teams or hold focus groups with a selection of colleagues from across the organisation to dig into specific wellbeing challenges.

Remember that employee wellbeing needs will vary and not all employees will need the same level of support. Consider a flexible wellbeing programme that allows colleagues to choose from a range of wellbeing benefits and access the support that best suits them. Use the following ideas to inspire you to create a successful employee wellbeing program.

Employee wellbeing initiatives examples

1. Social media company Buffer focuses on preventative care and offers employees ‘unsick days’, as well as access to online or in-person therapists. CEO Joel Gascoigne speaks frankly about his own experiences of mental health and therapy, helping to encourage open conversations.
2. Consultancy firm Accenture‘s employee assistance programme provides confidential support for issues like stress, substance abuse, depression, and anxiety. Colleagues are also offered 24/7 access to an online GP, and subsidised gym memberships to encourage people to take care of their physical wellbeing.
3. Collaboration tool Asana installed specialised nap rooms for employees looking to catch some afternoon rest. Flexible work schedules mean employees can take a quick nap then return to work with renewed energy. Asana also offers unlimited time off and ‘No meeting Wednesdays’ to encourage employees to take breaks and take care of themselves.
4. Google’s all-encompassing wellness programme features onsite healthcare services including chiropractor and massage services plus access to fitness centres, cooking classes, and skills workshops. Campus cafes are stocked with nutritious meals and snacks, with smaller plates on offer to help with portion control.
5. Software company Intuit offers meditation and mindfulness classes as well as incentives for employees engaging in stress-reduction habits such as taking a break, practising meditation, or listening to calming music. Employees can also find ‘mindful moment’ tips placed around the office.
6. Microsoft supports colleagues with mental health resources to help them stop smoking, as well as “Know Your Numbers” health screenings, mammograms, and flu shots for employees and their families.

Still curious about how to measure and manage employee wellbeing? Talk to one of our experts. We conduct employee surveys that make a difference and create positive organisational change. Contact us to discuss how we can help you.