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The wellness effect: Support your employees with wellbeing strategies

Mental health and well-being have dominated the conversation for the last several years in Canada, and economic uncertainty isn’t helping the situation.

• Nearly half (45 per cent) of Canadians are struggling financially to cover their everyday expenses.
• Anxiety and depression levels are still 57 per cent and 33 per cent above pre-pandemic benchmarks, respectively.
• Only 48.5 per cent of Canadians today are experiencing high levels of life satisfaction, compared with 54 per cent in 2021 at the height of the pandemic.

With such a gloomy picture, it’s no wonder your employees come to work every day and struggle to be productive. Wellness is affected by a variety of factors, from physical health to friendship support, financial wellbeing and mental health – and, of course, what’s happening at work.

Identify key success metrics

Savvy organizations know the role they can play in the wellness effect. Every dimension of your employees’ performance and health is interconnected. And while much of life is beyond your HR team’s control, you can identify your employees’ challenges and find ways to support them.

To do this, you have to know your employees deeply. Organizations need to learn what their employees value, and to do that, they will have to dive deep into their data.

• Identify the groups.The first step is identifying different types of employee groups. You may have a large group of new graduates, single parents or near retirees. Each group, however significant within your organization, has specific concerns that benefits can address. Correctly identifying the group will make it easier to spot the challenges they face.
• Dig into the data. Whether you are actively tracking the information or not, you already have a lot of data available to you. Those who struggle with mental well-being often leave clues in their claims history even if they aren’t sharing their struggles at work.Review claims history, including paramedical and disability claims, costs and duration of leave and prescription drug use.
• Find the gaps. If employees are feeling squeezed financially, they may not be using their benefits, even if they need the support. Take a deeper dive to answer these questions, including: Do employees have access to affordable counselling? Can they find providers willing to take on new patients? If the EAP covers counselling, are employees aware of it? Are employees in different demographics disproportionately using — or finding it difficult to access — the benefits?

Develop a comprehensive strategy

Understanding your employees is just the beginning. Once you have a picture of what’s impacting your employees, it’s time to build a strategy to help support them – and their well-being – at every turn.

• Win over the leadership. When your C-suite and other managers support your program, your employees will follow. Make sure your leadership team understands the importance of well-being and all the factors that impact it. Create job expectations around addressing well-being and find some champions who are willing to speak to it.
• Offer additional supports. This means different things for different organizations. You may need to add benefits coverage, such as a higher maximum for mental health coverage, or you may need to offer coverage in a different way (i.e., digital options). You may need to make different choices, such as removing the vending machine full of chips and candy and replacing it with fresh fruit deliveries to support healthy eating. The data you gathered earlier will help inform the changes that need to be made.
• Personalize your communication. We all like stories. Creating engaging messaging campaigns – and refreshing them regularly – helps to engage your employees. Share personal examples of how benefits helped a specific person get through a rough patch. These kinds of communications can help to destigmatize mental health issues and make employees aware of available resources.
• Support your employees. Finally, remember why you’re doing this: Wellness is about supporting your employees where they are and making their lives better. Tailoring your offerings to support your employees will not only strengthen your relationships with them, but it will likely also boost their productivity. And best of all, it creates a sense of belonging in your organization.

Laura Liden is a client strategist at global insurance brokerage Hub International, leading work in the employee benefits space since 2014. Laura’s career started as a member of benefits consulting team, working with both small and complex clients from the high-tech to the municipal sectors. Over time her role transitioned to solely support clients in organizational health, and absence and disability management. She supported public and private clients with designing, implementing, and evaluating strategic health-related and disability programs to improve organizational and employee health and well-being, safety, performance, mitigate risk and enhance operational efficiency. Today, as HUB’s client strategist, Laura partners with advisors to deliver an exceptional experience that is designed to make clients more successful in their strategy by being more knowledgeable of their people and making data informed decisions.