Asupportive and understanding workplace culture can bring many advantages. As well as boosting employee wellbeing, it will also help enhance productivity and improve employee retention. When you do need to hire more staff, a reputation for being supportive can help you attract candidates of the highest calibre. This means that fostering an understanding and supportiveenvironment is an essential task for HR departments.
Wellness Programmes
One way to become a more supportive workplace is to introduce wellness programmes. These can take many different forms, but can be used to reduce stress and promote both physical and mental wellbeing.
Check-Ins
Another strategy is simply to hold regular check-ins. These allow you to build up a picture of how an employee is managing and can help you identify when they are having problems. They can also be used to get feedback on the workplace, allowing you to see the premises through the eyes of the employee and think of ways to make it even more supportive and understanding.
Financial Wellness
Money worries can increase stress and anxiety and so support in dealing with financial issues can help alleviate this. Whether it is planning for retirement, finance when on maternity leave or coping with the day-to-day cost of living, financial wellness support can include providing workshops, planning tools and information to help employees make informed financial decisions.
Physical Health
Any measures that will improve employees’ physical health will also help boost their sense of wellbeing. There are many different possibilities depending on the space and facilities available at your workplace. These include an on-site gym, healthy food in an on-site cafeteria and physical health checks.
Addictions
Addictions can have a negative impact on both physical and mental health, and canpotentially reduce productivity. However, a supportive workplace can implement programmes such as stopsmoking or alcohol awareness to help employees realise whether they have a problem and support them in kicking the habit.
Problems with alcohol or drugs can be hard for employees to admit to and so many maybe reluctant to engage in the programmes. Offeringconfidentiality can help increase their willingness to engage.You can also identify those who may have a problem by implementinga drug and alcohol testing routine for all employees. Matrix Diagnostics is a firm that can provide workplace drug testing kits with a quick turnaround time for results. These can help you identify anyone with a problem without singling out individuals and allow you to put the right support in place.
Flexibility
Greater flexibility at work can make a huge difference to the busy lives of your employees. If it’s possible for employees to adjust their hours or even work from home for some or all of the time, thiscan help them juggle family and other caring commitments or perhaps allow them to travel to work duringless busy times. This can help reduce stress and will make the employee feel valued as a person.
Conclusion
By taking into account the physical and mental health of your employees, their financial situation, potential addiction problems and their personal situation, HR departments can help make workplacesmore supportive and understanding.