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Return to the office provides perfect chance to hit reset on corporate wellbeing

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By Neil Randall, CEO of Anytime Fitness UK

The easing of restrictions on 19th July will see steady returns to offices across the UK and for many, they will not have seen the sight of their workplace for over a year. After such an extended time away, this will be approached with trepidation for many and it’s the responsibility of their employers to ensure that this is as comfortable a process as possible.

While this will present its challenges, it comes full of opportunity and provides the ideal platform to start afresh with a corporate wellbeing strategy for their workforces.

From our perspective, the early signs are positive and it seems as if the significance of employee wellbeing is increasingly being recognised. We have been inundated with requests at record levels from various employers wanting to work with our locally owned clubs, who are delivering fantastic work in their local communities. A fine example being three of our Hertfordshire clubs who provided health assessments to over 50 NHS staff as part of their local hospital trust’s employee wellbeing event.

The usage figures from our partnership with Gympass, a leading corporate physical activity platform, are also very encouraging. May and June were record months for the number of Gympass members visiting our clubs since we began working with them, suggesting that employee engagement with their employers’ wellbeing incentives is heading in a positive direction.

The pandemic has made it more challenging than ever to truly assess how your employees are feeling, with virtual calls taking away several visual cues, most significantly their body language. It’ll take time to both reconnect with them and for them to adapt back to office life, but a well-thought-out corporate wellbeing programme can go a long way in accelerating this process.

I’ve been vocal in the past that too many employers put no thought into a wellness programme and are then surprised at their low engagement; this outcome will not shift unless employers take a very very different approach. One of the more positive outcome of the pandemic that we have faced over the last 15 months, is that people are more self-aware of the importance of their health than ever and employers that don’t give them the time and resources to look after themselves properly will undoubtedly suffer with increased absenteeism, high staff turnover and low(er) morale and outputs among teams.

I don’t feel it’s fair to lay the entirety of blame at the employers doors though; this is something that needs to come from the very top in Government. A great example I like to use is the amazing turnaround that Finland had with the health of their population. In the 1960s, it had the highest male heart rate disease in the world but now find themselves as the world’s fittest population. This was built on a complete attitude change around health and wellbeing from the top, with employee wellbeing at the heart of it. Fast forward to today and Finnish companies spend an average of nearly £200 per employee, per year on physical activity incentives and the provision of facilities and classes.

This shows the impact that effective policy and leadership can have and the introduction some sort of legislation or ‘wellbeing grant’ to employers from the Government will deliver sensational return on investment in social value and adverse pressure on our health services. Healthier workforces are happier workforces and the benefit to the nation will be felt with better health and increased productivity.

With many businesses making decisions to scale down or rationalise their office space, it presents a great opportunity to reinvest portions of the surplus costs to give employees their own personal budget for wellbeing. This then opens up a range of possibilities to support their people in a number of different ways, not just a reduced price gym membership or a salary sacrifice scheme.

The burning question is what makes a good employee wellbeing programme? There’s certainly no one-size fits all approach and for me, the most significant thing is embedding your employees’ health and wellbeing at the heart of your culture. You can throw lots of subsidised activity and opportunities their way but if you don’t couple that with leading by example, where employees feel like they have the time and empowerment to look after their health and get away from their desk, then it won’t work.

Centrally at our Support Office, we’ll be moving to a dynamic working model where our employees balance home and office working more dynamically, while still being able to deliver absolute focus on the strategic direction of the business. In addition to that, I believe in leading by example and throughout the pandemic, have encouraged our team to get active during their working day at a time that suits them, something that has been widely welcomed.

The best employees want to work for the companies that best look after them and we really hope that this unique moment in time is capitalised on and employee wellbeing is no longer an afterthought.

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Source: http://hrnews.co.uk/return-to-the-office-provides-perfect-chance-to-hit-reset-on-corporate-wellbeing/

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