Employee Wellbeing Checklist

Preface

Wellbeing encompasses happiness, comfort, and health. Considering most people spend a third of their lifetime at work, wellbeing at work can have a significant impact on an employee’s life inside and outside the workplace. Whether that impact is positive or negative is another issue entirely.

Negative wellbeing in the workplace can lead to depression and burnout. While positive wellbeing can lead to productivity, job satisfaction, and good company retention. The wellness of a company’s employees can also affect the company’s morale and bottom line.

Wellness policies can be made that ensure the staff are on the same page about implementing a company-wide wellness program.

Employee Wellbeing Checklist

Consider the questions in the sections below that pertain to each of three aspects of employee wellness: physical, mental, and work-related wellbeing to develop a comprehensive employee wellness program. This includes company policies that encourage positive behaviors and nurture healthy lives for employees.

Managers can use their internal communication platform to send out employee surveys to get employees’ feedback and suggestions. Surveys can help managers get a better idea of the wellness of their staff so they can take appropriate steps to improve overall wellbeing.

1. Physical Wellbeing

Being physically well at work includes the ability to remain healthy, safe, and free from hazards and toxic environments. An employee’s physical wellbeing is partially dependent on the employee’s life outside of work and whether or not they have healthy habits. Here is a checklist to assess physical wellbeing:

• Is the workplace safe? This means being free from physical hazards, chemicals, fumes, and other dangers. Ensure employees properly use safety equipment and wear personal protective gear.
• Do employees get adequate sick days? Sick employees will recover faster at home.
• Are gym memberships part of employee benefits and are workouts actively encouraged? Employees who exercise may take fewer sick days and may have improved health and mood.
• Is the office equipment ergonomic and comfortable? This can include keyboards, chairs, desks, and workstations that may reduce workplace injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome and back pain.
• Do employees have healthy foods available? Health foods can be added to the cafeteria to help employees maintain their physical fitness. For work-at-home employees, healthy meal vouchers can be provided.
• Pro-tip for managers: Make your safety guidelines easily accessible on your intranet.

2. Mental Wellbeing

Mental wellbeing includes emotional and social wellbeing. An employee’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction in their job can be included in mental wellbeing.

A mentally well employee may feel they have adequate support from coworkers and managers. And they may have an outlet to talk about mental issues such as therapy, which could be provided as a job benefit.

Some points to consider are:

• Are workloads excessive and do employees feel short-staffed? Overworked staff can lead to burnout and low retention numbers.
• Do employees get sufficient time off to keep a good work/life balance? Allowing employees enough time to relax and recover from work stress can lead to a happier work life as well as a happier home life.
• Can employees socialize sufficiently? Social events can take place for coworkers to get to know each other. Activities such as team-building exercises can help employees to bond.
• Are stressful situations in the workplace addressed? Life can be less harrowing for employees when management takes care of situations like broken equipment.
• Are there sufficient channels for employees to communicate with managers and with each other? Internal communication tools exist, such as Haiilo platform, to help keep a workforce connected.
• Pro-tip for managers: Integrate employee surveys into your internal communication platform.

3. Work-related Wellbeing

Work-related wellbeing can include all aspects of physical and mental wellbeing as they pertain to an employee’s job. An employee’s wellbeing in the workplace can be affected if a job is physically unsafe, if the company provides inadequate safety training, or if management has taken inadequate safety measures.

Ask yourself:

• Are there personal development programs available? Employees should be encouraged to advance their careers and continue learning.
• Can managers be trained, coached, or mentored? Managers can take leadership courses to become better leaders and improve employee wellbeing.
• Does the company have Occupational Safety and Health Administration posters in high-traffic locations around the workspace which inform workers of their rights? These include the right to a safe workplace, and the right to raise safety or health concerns with their employer, among others.
• Is safety training a priority? Proper safety training can reduce workplace injuries, missed work for injured employees, and workers’ compensation claims.
• Does the staff feel that the company listens to them? Management can find out through surveys and interviews how the staff views the company and whether or not they feel the company takes their wellbeing seriously enough.
• Pro-tip for managers: Post anonymous surveys to your company’s social intranet to get honest feedback and suggestions.

Conclusion

One of the most important parts of implementing a policy of any kind is communication. Management should all be on the same page as far as strategies to help increase employee wellness and the implementation of policies. Managers can complete checklists such as the one in this article to make sure policies are rolled out smoothly.

After completing these checklists, managers can then help let employees know what the company policies are and about all the tools and programs available so employees can take steps to increasing their wellness. Checklists can be used when reviewing wellness policies with employees to make sure employees are happy, productive, and well.

Haiilo is the leading employee communication platform for helping companies communicate with their employees. Our social intranet solution is an internal communications platform that can help your staff stay connected and makes it easier for management to reach out to employees. This tool can be used to reach out to staff for wellness issues and all other matters.



Staff can use the employee app to reach out to management as well. If you want to better reach your team and to have a digital platform for company communications, reach out to Haiilo today to book a demo and we’d be happy to offer you solutions.