Wellbeing programs for SME’s: a no-brainer. Large corporations all over the world (like Allianz and ABN AMRO for instance), have long been familiar with the positive effects of employee wellbeing programs. Nowadays, smaller companies (and even non-profit organizations ) are starting to experiment with their own wellness programs in order to improve the wellbeing of their employees.
Alan Kohll, Founder and President of TotalWellness and guest writer of entrepeur.com, sheds light on how SME’s can install highly effective wellbeing programs in a good way.
From an increased productivity, to a positive return on investment: it’s all there. Corporate wellbeing is a superb tool for your employer branding to
o and it helps attract the right applicants for your business. For companies with a relatively small workforce, absenteeism due to illness can be a real problem. It’s no wonder that more and more small enterprises are now actively trying to prevent their coworkers from getting ill by helping them in achieving a healthy (or healthier) lifestyle.
It’s definitely the way to go, but it can be hard at times. If you don’t know how to start: Here are 5 tips that will get your organisation ahead.
- There is no guide to the perfect wellbeing program.
There’s no such thing as a perfect plan for a wellbeing program. Each company has to create its wellness program based on their own company culture and goals. - You cannot exclude anyone.
It’s important to create a group feeling while implementing a wellness program. If you start excluding people, this will lead to bad motivation and less cooperation in the company. On the other hand, it’s not wise to force every employee to participate, but they should have the chance to participate should they want to –no matter their hierarchical rank or function. - Your program has to be flexible.
If your employees have remarks on your program or if it isn’t working the way it’s supposed to, it’s important that you can easily change big or little things about it so you won’t lose time. Only by adjusting the program to the current needs in the office, can you consistently keep your employees happy. - Evaluate your results.
It’s important to see if your program has had the effect on your company you were aiming for. By setting up your wellbeing program with this in mind, it’ll be remarkably easy to look at the results and draw the right conclusions. - Use the current momentum to your advantage.
You definitely won’t be the first small business to implement an employee wellbeing program, but there are many advantages to being an early adapter here. It’ll help distinguish your company from your competitors, both in the eyes of future employees, your current employees and your customers. After all, which small or medium enterprise wouldn’t want to be the talk of the town because they’re so great to work for, right?
By the way, do you find it difficult to figure out the exact return of your wellbeing program? Hercules Academy has developed a ROI tool to help you calculate the Return on your corporate wellbeing strategy, based on your specific company numbers. Contact us on info@hercules-academy.com for more information.