/ Glossary / What is Employee Wellbeing?

What is employee wellbeing?

Employee wellbeing refers to the physical, mental, and emotional health of employees both in and outside of the workplace. Wellbeing is affected by relationships, communication, tasks, expectations, and the work environment.

Maintaining a high level of employee wellbeing means more than providing a healthy snack bar, game room, or gym. Organizations should understand that employee wellbeing goes beyond physical health; it includes more complex factors like mood, environment, leadership, and company culture.

Maintaining a holistic perspective of overall wellbeing and satisfaction is increasingly important now that many people are working from home full or part time.

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What affects employee wellbeing?

Several dimensions affect employee wellbeing, across three categories: physical, mental, and social.

Physical wellness involves encouraging employees to maintain healthy habits like getting adequate sleep and making healthy food choices. A comfortable and clean work environment is also part of the physical wellbeing of workers.

For the remote workforce, this can be a challenge. Sometimes companies need to be creative by providing laptop stands, ergonomic keyboards, or noise-canceling headphones to ensure employees are comfortable.

Mental wellness is also a critical aspect of employees’ wellbeing. Having the right tools in place, such as designating “no meeting” days, encouraging employees not to be online 24/7, and providing supportive resources, contributes to employees’ mental wellbeing.

Social wellness refers to interactions and the sense of belonging. Areas that may affect an employee’s social wellbeing may include team and leadership activities, volunteer opportunities, inclusive company culture, and opportunities for social interaction.

What are the key elements of employee wellbeing?

Employers should consider how they support the five elements of employee wellbeing.

  • Social: Facilitate meaningful relationships in the workplace. The social aspect at work should be encouraged. Even when working remotely, plan social interactions, give employees a way to send congratulations to others, or have virtual social meetings.
  • Career: Support your employee’s career goals, promote learning and development, create a succession planning program, and most importantly, support work-life balance.
  • Physical: Create comprehensive programs to support healthy habits including sleep, nutrition, physical or mental wellbeing programs.
  • Community: Create a sense of belonging at work with employee resource groups. Networking and socializing within common interest groups will help create community.

Benefits of implementing a digital wellness plan for employee wellbeing

One way to improve employee wellbeing is to focus on digital wellness. This means achieving a healthy relationship with technology in the workplace and employees’ personal lives.

Taking digital wellness action may include using productivity tools that block notifications during focused work hours or improve the employee experience inside a digital workspace. Some of the benefits of implementing digital wellness may include:

Lower anxiety and stress

When employees are working non-stop or using excessive technology, it may lead to them having lower confidence levels and taking more sick days. Companies that focus on digital wellness see more productivity and employee satisfaction. 

Better employee satisfaction

Wellbeing initiatives, especially those that include digital wellness, improve the work-life experience for employees that’s critical for job satisfaction. By adopting wellbeing practices—such as flexible work schedules—companies have more satisfied employees.

Increased productivity

Digital wellness activities increase productivity partly by simplifying tasks. By promoting digital wellness, businesses can increase employee productivity and reduce burnout.

How to improve employee wellbeing with technology

Companies can adopt wellness apps and technologies to promote their employees’ wellbeing, such as apps that remind people to take breaks to stand-up and move at designated times during the day.

Digital wellbeing can be achieved through simplified digital experiences. By presenting the apps, data, and tools employees use most frequently in an intuitive interface, businesses can minimize distractions and simplify tasks. This means employees can focus on the core work instead of wasting time trying to find necessary applications and data.

Integrations can also help ease employee stress. Having to work with separate apps that don’t integrate can be a nightmare, wasting time and effort. By creating a digital platform, businesses can simplify the integration of new and existing software and apps.

Citrix solutions for employee wellbeing

Citrix digital solutions help organizations improve employee wellbeing by providing easy access to apps and data from any device, so people can work seamlessly from anywhere.

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