Employee Wellness — When Wellness, Productivity and Love come together.
Many people have often viewed Employee Wellness Programs as a privilege. Is it really?
Generally, managers want employees to have a positive attitude, the right levels of focus, they want their employees to be resilient, able to give their 100%… all of the above and more. This is precisely why Employee Wellness is so vital.
Let’s face it, we all have a personal life and commitments outside of work we need to deal with, and the question lies on how we, as employers, can enable and support our employees to manage both their personal and work life effectively.
Truthfully, it is extremely difficult to achieve a balance between work and life and much simpler to enable an environment and a mindset where both are well blended. In today’s fast paced and dynamic life, having an employer who not only cares about your wellbeing at work, but also outside of it shouldn’t be underestimated.
At Hero Gaming, we introduced an abundant list of great new benefits, yet we felt we needed to take it one step further to establish an environment which supports a work life blend and where work feels like home. This is how our Employee Wellness Program came to light.
We focused on whipping up a diverse program that caters for all scenarios, age groups, cultures and nationalities, locals and expats, by understanding our employees’ needs and connecting all the right components to create the best possible holistic and flexible wellness program to suit both the business and our people. There is no one size fits all.
We questioned several aspects when putting our strategy for Employee Wellness together. Are employees starting a new family? Are they getting married? Do the standard leave allowances cover their daily needs? Perhaps they are battling family or health issues?
We’ve extended the standard leave allowances to cater for new parents, newly-weds and many others. Flexibility has also been key in enabling a work life blend which comes in many forms. Besides the standard benefits such as Health Insurance, we provide our Heroes with an annual Health Allowance, Healthy Breakfasts, Fresh Fruit, Parking, amazing New Offices and more. On top of that we have teamed up with organisations such as the Richmond Foundation in Malta and Blue Call in Sweden, to support people’s mental health, something I feel should be implemented within all companies!
Who would have thought that a short while back, it would have been considered absolute nonsense and frowned upon to carry out workshops such as sleep training or meditation sessions within an organisation, yet the reality is that lack of sleep and lack of mindfulness are a productivity nightmare.
Our goal has been to ensure we offer a supportive and caring approach, which gives our employees peace of mind with anything that they may be experiencing in their personal lives. As a result, we landed ourselves a loyal and happy family of Heroes who feel appreciated and cared for. This was also reflected in an increase in our Employee Wellness scores in Office Vibe from 6.1 to 7.5 and an increase in employee retention, so it’s clearly a win-win!
In closing, it goes without saying, a discontented or unwell employee is not a productive employee. At Hero Gaming we have worked relentlessly to build our Hero Wellness Program, which is holistic and cultivates a healthy work culture, which is at the heart of how we #love #dare #win. We strategized and executed what I believe is a fabulous program well suited for our Heroes. You reap what you sow and through this program we as a company are now also seeing immense improvements in employee health, happiness, engagement, retention, employer branding and talent acquisition.
Written by Vanessa Zammit — HR Business Partner
