Employee Happiness Should be Top Priority of Organizations Worker engagement is definitely one of the topics du jour for modern management and the future of work

The idea of employee wellbeing has evolved over the years, with the change in workers' behaviour and employers' expectations. Today's modern workforce and remote workplace culture show a significant change in the way organizations deal with employee wellbeing.

A Deloitte 2018 Human Trends report shows more than 40 per cent of all workers suffer from high stress, which negatively affects their productivity. It also adds that the costs of lost productivity are 2.3 times higher than medical and pharmacy costs, which is a major concern for employees' wellbeing.

Traditional versus Modern Workforce

As today's employers and employees have connected the dots between health and job performance, workforce programs are undergoing a massive transformation to do more than help employees manage health risks—or reduce insurance costs, for that matter.

While the traditional workforce had a different vision for their wellbeing, this generation's employees are more conscious about health and hygiene. As per a report by Grokker, an on-demand wellbeing solution for workforce, most employees want to improve their wellbeing by addressing every area of health, in ways that work for them, according to their unique challenges and goals.

"While you certainly want to enable measurable behavior change and increased workforce productivity, it's about delivering on a commitment to employees' holistic health," says the report.

Take Action

According to the Deloitte 2018 Human Capital Trends Report, 84 per cent of organizations feel wellbeing is important— but only 49 per cent are ready to take action. That's what makes holistic and easy-to-use workplace benefit products so critical. It takes a truly modern solution—one that employees love and that's easy for HR to administer— to drive adoption, engagement, and results.

While the workplace wellbeing market is expected to hit $11.3 billion by 2021 with the growing focus on wellbeing, two out of three organizations say wellbeing programs are a critical part of their employment brand and culture.

What to Do

• Personalization

As every employer is different so is the employee. Grokker says that we can't generalize employees' personal interests, habits, etc. The needs and interests could be different according to each employee, so how to spark motivation in work? Here are a few common points that today's workforce want in their work culture.

1) Content delivered wherever and whenever they want it

2) Incentives and challenges that will spark their personal interest and ongoing participation

3) Easy-to-navigate digital tools that provide the options and feedback that are most relevant to each user.

• Community

Community engagement activities always drive enthusiasm and connect among employees and employers. Here comes the HR role in the organization. More online and offline activities to build connect can help organizations form strong relations, and hence create community with employees. Today around most employees use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves. HRs should make an optimum use of this engagement of employees on social media.

• Tracking and Reporting

Technology plays an important role in measuring the success of each employee. With the right tools, your data will help enable more personalized and effective program content, incentives, and uncover insights into what makes your employees "tick" so you can make improvements over time. Fortunately, the best modern solutions deliver both the technology backend as well as the frontend content and analytics to support your program goals.