A troubling trend is emerging in today’s workplace: employee morale and overall satisfaction are in sharp decline despite companies investing more in wellness initiatives than ever before.
Many organizations misunderstand wellness—it’s not a program or a box to check. True wellness stems from leaders who improve everyday conditions that directly impact employee satisfaction and performance.
Most leaders would prefer their employees to be happy and well at work. But, the majority of these leaders also deprioritize employee wellness among their other, seemingly more pressing priorities—boosting productivity and improving the bottom line. Yet, in our work, we find that the leaders who drive the best results put employee wellness first. Why?
Satisfied Employees Are More Productive
It’s been well-established in the research that employees that are more satisfied on the job are more productive as well. It makes sense that employees who love their work and the people on their teams tend to be more impactful on the job.
However, when wellness takes a hit, so does job satisfaction—ultimately leading to lower productivity. Even employees that have their “dream job” are unlikely to stay satisfied if they are in an unhealthy environment that includes elements like working unsustainable hours and dealing with toxic colleagues. This type of environment can lead to burnout, which leads employees to resent their leaders, colleagues, and the job itself.
Focusing on employee wellness can reduce this negative impact. Avoiding overwork, overwhelm, and exhaustion allows employees to stay away from burnout and continue being productive.
Employee Wellness Boosts Engagement
When leaders focus on boosting employee wellness, employee engagement also tends to increase. Most leaders know how important engagement is. Engaged employees are not only higher performing and more productive, they tend to put more effort into work and be more proactive. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. Employees feel excited and motivated to do their jobs and organizations experience a boost in productivity.
Wellness Improves the Bottom Line
As you can imagine, a focus on wellness also improves organizations’ bottom line. All of that increased productivity turns into higher performing organizations. The opposite is true as well. Companies that have high levels of burnout tend to see a hit against their profits. In addition, employees that are not doing well tend to disengage, quiet quit, use more sick days, and leave the company. The cost of turnover alone is steep, but add in the additional loss of productivity from folks that are quiet quitting, and the cost to the business is enormous. Instead, focusing on employee wellness can help positively shift the impact on the financial success of organizations.
In our own research, we found that leaders that focus on wellness are game changers. Our participants consistently reported that their wellness-focused leaders produced higher quality work than others did. They also reported that they were more committed to their teams and organizations because of their leaders, compared to other leaders they had worked for in the past that did not focus on wellness.
If you are a leader, it would serve you well to prioritize employee wellness as one way to improve productivity!
