Should You Be Providing Well-Being Schemes?.

​There’s no one on this planet that is constantly 100% while at work. Lack of sleep, physical or mental health issues, or just pure disengagement, are problems which could affect anyone. Even a few years ago, the problems of the employee remained exclusively just that; an individual’s issues to deal with privately.

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However, more and more, workers all over the world are starting to display a greater concern for the ‘self’; if a job now provides too much stress, an individual feels more freedom to leave. Why?

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One reason is because our current job market is candidate-short; skilled or experienced candidates now have more of a choice than ever where they want to work. Another reason is the increasing proportion of Millennials in the workforce, who have become accustomed to the benefit and diversity schemes which have begun to be universal in the last decades.

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These things have meant that the well-being of employees has had to become a focus for employers. But catering to everyone can be hard. What can employers do to satisfy their employees, and what can candidates ask for to ensure their own well-being?

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Here at Aspire, we wanted to find out. We conducted a series of surveys, sent out to both our APAC and UK clients and candidates in the Marketing, Media, Digital, Sales and Technology fields, in order to collect their thoughts regarding well-being. By gathering this information, we hoped to address whether Marketing leaders and HR professionals need to consider introducing better benefit schemes in order to acquire new talent, and retain their star employees.

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What even is well-being?

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The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health defines well-being at work as the act of “focusing on job satisfaction and mental health”.

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This is a pretty general term, it’s true. However, that is because everyone needs something different to support them, from maternity leave to cycle to work schemes.

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However, despite there being many things which count as a well-being scheme, our candidate survey found 56.94% of respondents claimed their workplace did not have any well-being scheme in place. Contrastingly, 53.33% of clients claimed that they did. Clearly workers do not feel as cared for as employers think they are caring.

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Does this matter?

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In short, yes! 59.81% of candidate respondents claimed to be unsatisfied with their benefits and pay. Similarly, 29.27% of candidate respondents also claimed to be actively looking for a new job.

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This, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a domino effect! By having limited well-being benefits, employees feel unsatisfied, and look to move to another company who values and invests in them. In turn, the employee can value and invest in that company. Clearly, it is in the interest of all APAC organisations to introduce such schemes!

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What can companies do to improve their well-being schemes?

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There are many easy things you can do to improve your staffs’ motivation. Even putting out free healthy food in the office, like fruit, shows a level of care! Our report sets out many more things that can be done to satisfy employees. These include, but are not limited to, emotional, physical and financial support. Examples of each respectively would be providing mental health awareness, fitness hours, and advice with partner banks.

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Clearly, encouraging well-being in the workplace is beneficial both to employees and employers. By placing value in employees, they too will begin to value the company more, and even spread the good word of it on social media and in person!

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To learn more about well-being in the workplace, or about diversity and Millennial recruitment, take a look at our Workplace Trends Report!