Employees value flexible working over wellness benefits

For an organisation to thrive, its employees need to be healthy and happy. But new research suggests that when it comes to investing in employee wellbeing, employers are putting their budgets and energies into the wrong areas.

The survey conducted for Investors in People (IIP), the people management and employee wellbeing accreditation organisation, found a significant mismatch in how employees and HR professionals think about wellbeing initiatives. The bottom line? Employees value flexible working and a positive workplace culture much higher than benefits such as gym memberships and stress management apps.

Long-term fundamentals

Asked about job satisfaction, employees' priorities are long-term fundamentals such as supportive management, open communication, rewards and recognition and flexible working. These are rated as much more important than wellness initiatives like fitness memberships, classes and apps, office health and nutrition programmes and stress management workshops.

For more than 90% of employees, flexible working is the biggest driver of wellbeing with almost 70% saying they use it often.

Meanwhile, only 27% of employees see health and wellness apps as effective in improving their wellbeing and only 25% believe that stress management workshops are effective.

The YouGov survey of over 1,000 employees and 500 HR decision makers showed that HR professionals believe such programmes are more valued by employees than they really are.

While 72% of HR decision makers think that gym memberships are valuable to their staff, only 41% of employees do and a third see them as not valuable. Almost six in ten employees (59%) say they have never used their gym memberships or fitness classes, 49% never use stress management workshops and 47% never use health and wellness apps.

Culture of wellbeing

Wellness benefits still have their place, but employers choosing them first might struggle to retain or recruit staff -- particularly in what remains a competitive job market, warned Paul Devoy, chief executive of IIP.

"When it comes to wellbeing at work, employees would choose general improvements in workplace culture over reactive wellness interventions," Devoy explained.

"If employers continue to insist on focusing on the symptoms (stress management workshops) over the root cause (unsustainable workload, poor management or lack of flexibility), they are unlikely to improve employee wellbeing.

"That's not to say that the more tangible wellness benefits are pointless -- they are still used and valued by many employees -- but they must be underpinned by a strong culture of wellbeing and a holistic wellbeing."

Tailored approach

Responding to the IIP findings, Karl Bennett, chair of EAPA UK, the Employee Assistance Professionals Association, said that HR needs to understand "the changing landscape of issues and needs across an organisation -- where teams are struggling with workload pressures, with questions over management styles, problems with relationships, or escalating worries over finances."

He added: "More and more different wellbeing services clearly haven't been the answer. A tailored approach, with HR working closely with their EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) provider and accessing its bank of insights to identify real needs, can lead to the tangible outcomes needed, lower levels of stress and more engaged and motivated people."