One of HR’s Most Important Roles: Employee Wellbeing

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HR has a vital role in bringing insights to leadership regarding employee wellbeing. An employee’s mindset to resisting change, company growth, and workplace stress can lead to burnout, mental health issues, disengagement, or resignation. HR must help leadership recognize that work performance and wellbeing are interconnected and design their employee benefits around an integrated approach to treating the body and the mind.

Since wellbeing continues to be at the forefront of employee expectations, employers must implement new and expand their current well-being resources and benefits. HR’s role is to encourage employees to practice self-care and seek the resources they need to live their best lives. Also important is giving the employees permission to disengage from work to care for themselves and their families. HR is critical to implementing wellbeing programs, introducing employees to them, and bridging employees to services outside their benefits if needed. All while continuing to be an ongoing resource for finding new services and benefits to add to their company’s benefits offerings.

HR Tools & Services

According to a study by Guardian Life, employers who have increased their investment in mental health benefits have found a 50% increase in retention and half a day of productivity per engaged employee per week. Other trends from their The Top Five Benefit Trends of 2022 webinar include:

Trend #1- Employees will demand more flexible work arrangements and hybrid work.

Trend #2- Organizations will work to improve workforce mental and emotional health.

Trend #3- Organizations will develop and implement a holistic employee leave strategy.

Trend #4- Investments will be made in technology to help employees make the most of their benefits options.

Trend #5- Addressing justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace will be essential to organizational culture.

Employee wellbeing includes emotional, physical, and financial health, with HR central to implementing programs to meet changing employee expectations. The pandemic enabled employees to have more time and more balanced life outside of the office, and employees don’t want to lose that. For many, working from home provides time to reflect on what matters to them, and employees now look toward their employers to offer wellbeing benefits.

Our Client Retention

To attract and retain the best talent, companies must show they care about their employees’ health and wellbeing. Dependent care services, flexible work options, and other work-life benefits such as fertility services and autism treatments are all real-life services that employees expect when considering leaving their employer for another.

Aspen HR can help implement wellbeing programs as part of your company’s benefits package through our white-glove service model approach. We design employee wellbeing programs to fit your needs and your employee’s expectations. Contact us to see how your company’s benefits benchmark against your industry. 


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