Why your staff wellbeing package is failing

by Ally Fekaiki, founder of employee wellbeing company Juno (www.withjuno.com)

Over the course of a year, we spoke with hundreds of employees, employers and HR professionals. In those interviews, we learnt about wellbeing at work, the challenges in keeping people healthy and happy, and why wellbeing packages offered by businesses are falling well short.

It is undeniable that ‘wellbeing’ has become a topic much discussed in recent years.

Perhaps no more so than in the workplace, where businesses young and old have peered inwardly as they look to succeed in the battleground surrounding their four walls.

The physical and mental wellbeing of the workforce has steadily and consistently climbed up the list of a company’s priorities. In 2019, employee wellbeing has established itself as a strategic necessity, not just a luxury offered by Silicon Valley’s progressive unicorns.

Ping pong tables and office dogs a mainstay, the focus has evolved and matured. Companies now look to tackle mental health, stress, depression and sickness.

Those of you that have applied for a job since 2010 will have noticed the regiment of bullet points at the bottom of every job description, reeling off perks and benefits offered: team lunches, the ‘potential’ to work flexibly, free coffee and fruit, yoga after work.

So, has it worked?

At desks across the country, stress and sickness, absenteeism and its uglier lesser-known brother ‘presentee-ism’ run rife. So bad is the economic and health impact of this crisis, the UK government released a white-paper urging small to medium businesses to tackle the issue — and tackle it now. That was back in 2017, and according to our research, we seem no closer to an improvement.

The problem(s) with ‘Wellbeing’.

The issue with employee wellbeing is three-fold.

1. Some companies don’t recognise the urgency, necessity, financial incentive.

Some employers expressed scepticism regarding how a comprehensive wellbeing programme might affect productivity and where they would find the budget. Despite the litany of research on how staff wellbeing can increase the bottom line, the culture remains largely unperturbed.

2. Some companies already have a programme, and ‘it’s a-mazing ’

Except, unfortunately, it probably isn’t.

Data (both ours and external) has shown that existing programmes are either:

• Piecemeal (mental health ‘week,’ ad-hoc lunches, drinks after work)
• Inflexible (yoga before work on Wednesdays)
• Rewards & Perk based (coupons, offers, trying to solve wellbeing with commerce)
• Not tailored to the individual’s needs
• Extra work masquerading as wellbeing (personal development allowances)
• Subsidised, but not entirely (discounts on pricey gym memberships)
• Over-exposed (staff are uncomfortable utilising the programmes for fear of stigma or judgment)

And that has led to:

• Low engagement (>20% of staff taking advantage)
• Disenchantment (employers unable to meet staff’s needs)
• Dysfunction (sickness, stress and conflict)
• Churn (staff leaving)

3. Wellbeing means different things to different people

For young parents, the effect of having company-provided childcare might have the same impact on wellbeing that fitness classes have on a 20-something graduate. For pet owners, dog-sitting lightens the load, whilst pressured managers want talk therapy to de-stress, and so on.

Companies mean well but struggle to make everybody happy. Needs and circumstances are as diverse as the workforce they stem from.

Exceptional companies know that their staff do their best work when they are happy and fulfilled, and sometimes that means the stuff outside of work needs to be taken care of.

That’s what a good wellbeing programme is for.

Employees feel that to truly love their job, the work they do is paramount, but feeling looked after and valued and having a proper work/life balance is fundamental if they are to stay and make an impact.

The solution in two words: flexibility and variety.

The quandary remains, how do businesses make everyone happy at work and cater for everybody’s needs? They do so by offering flexibility and variety.

We live in an on-demand economy. More than ever, employees are looking for personalised experiences.

In the last decade, customer experience has focused heavily on personalisation. It’s all on-demand.

Think of Netflix, Spotify and Instagram — it’s all tailored to the user. You curate your feed, subscribe to your interests, follow your favourites.

If Netflix was your employer’s wellbeing programme, there would be four films. Three of them would be about work, the other one would ask you to write half of it yourself.

Startups and wellbeing providers ought to use technology to tackle this issue and empower businesses to provide better and more suitable programmes that ensure that people are happier and healthier at work; whilst businesses should approach the issue of wellbeing anew, investing more into their staff and thinking more deeply and creatively about how to truly take care of their staff.

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Ally Fekaiki is the founder of Juno, an employee wellbeing platform. Juno offers wellbeing on-demand, through a host of top wellness partners in London. Visit and enquire about membership at www.withjuno.com