Well-being Index, The Key To Maximize Corporate Wellness In Companies

How often does anyone ask about our well-being? Or how often do we think about our well-being? The answer is mostly never to sometimes. The well-being concept usually gets sidelined in a world where everyone is rushing and competing to achieve their life goals.

However, times are changing. And now, people around the globe are prioritizing their well-being in their personal and professional life. Work anxiety and stress are most likely to occur in professional life, especially in the corporate world. It is inevitable.

Employers, and HR managers, however, have the power to reduce the intensity of work-related stress and anxiety. Along with utilizing the employee's skills to accomplish the company's goals, you should also pay heed to their well-being as a leader.

To do so, it is high time employers and managers should carry out wellness assessments properly.This is where the well-being index comes into play.

Are you someone who is looking for ways to enrich your organization's culture? Do you wish to maximize employee engagement and wellness at your workplace? If so, the well-being index may be the catalyst that will help you level up in employee wellness and more.

The question of the hour is, what does the well-being index mean? We will get into that in this blog; before that, it is important to learn about the term "well-being," too. This blog will guide you through the features of the well-being index, its benefits, and a few FAQs.

What is well-being?

Well-being is a condition wherein a person experiences positive emotions along with good health. Well-being, if simply put, is when a person feels contented, happy, and healthy without any negativity from within.

There is another term that you may be thinking about in this regard: " Wellness." Now, what does wellness mean? And how is it different from well-being? Or do these terms have interchangeable meanings?

Wellness is a state of a person being healthy primarily. Hence, coming to HR managers who aim to promote employee wellness, the foremost step is to take care of the different dimensions of wellness.

Dimensions of wellness

Wellness is all about being healthy. But when you introspect about the term “healthy”, usually you will probably think about being physically healthy. However, wellness has more depth. There are 9 dimensions of wellness, as listed below:

1. Physical well-being
2. Emotional well-being
3. Intellectual well-being
4. Social well-being
5. Spiritual well-being
6. Financial well-being
7. Occupational well-being
8. Vocational well-being
9. Cultural well-being

A person will attain positive well-being if all the above dimensions of wellness are fulfilled successfully upto a certain extent.

What is the well-being index?

A well-being index is an assessment tool used to calculate the different dimensions of wellness. The calculated result is the key to creating a sustainable corporate wellness plan or a viable workspace. It is a useful tool for employers and HR managers to learn about their employees' well-being at the workplace.

This tool can potentially retain employees in any organization, minimize absenteeism and accelerate employee wellness. Now, before we discuss the features of the well-being index, let's go through the benefits of incorporating this tool into your workplace.

Benefits of formulating an employee well-being index for a workplace

• Efficient assessment of where the gaps lie between an organization's approach to employee well-being and how the staff absorbs it.
• Recognizes the employers who are best supporting the mental health as well the physical health of their staff.
• Helps in attracting public recognition of the organization's commitment to facilitating workplace well-being.
• By incorporating a well-being index, an organization can become a part of a revolutionary movement for change in workplace health dynamics.
• A well-being index can help the employer find out the benchmark of employee wellness compared to the peers and other participants in the index.

The employee well-being index is a powerful assessment tool. If HR managers or employers can harness its benefits properly, they will be able to retain the best employees to take the organization to its zenith. This tool will also give you the upper hand in crafting a positive brand image in the marketplace for clients and future employees.

People say there is nothing like experiencing a product or service firsthand. No matter how clearly you explain the features and benefits of a product or service to users, they may not understand it to the T.

Similarly, introducing a corporate wellness program at the workplace may be necessary to generate genuine insights from the well-being index.

A hands-on experience with a customized corporate wellness program will help reluctant employees understand the need to participate in the well-being index survey. This also gives them more context and understanding of what entails a successful wellness program.

What does a successful wellness program consist of?

1. A platform that runs seamlessly

From onboarding the users (employees of an organization) to making them participate in the program successfully is all about great user experience. Also, HR managers should feel at ease while curating the wellness challenges.

2. Should encompass the different dimensions of wellness

A successful wellness program is something that integrates the standard components of wellness. For instance, the program should atleast cover social, emotional, intellectual, physical, and spiritual wellness.

3. Instill excitement and offer something more to the users

To make a wellness program a huge success, generating enthusiasm amongst the participants is also important. Adding the below-mentioned elements can do the magic-

• Provide generous incentivization
• Setting realistic goals when it comes to the wellness challenges
• Offer an option to make entry of activities that will contribute towards wellness like book reading, swimming, tracking heart rate, meditation, and yoga. (Include such activities in the wellness challenges, too, and offer incentives. This will help instill the feeling of motivation to participate for the reward, as well as keep the users hooked for upcoming challenges)
  
  For such a purpose, Vantage Fit is your go-to corporate wellness application. Vantage Fit will give your employees a grand walkthrough of the benefits of enrolling in a customized wellness app. Intrigued yet? If so, we recommend you to schedule a demo right away to get a bird's eye view of the app.

Request Demo

General features of the well-being index

1. Questionnaires

The primary feature of the well-being index involves asking the right questions. Prepare a set of top questions you want to ask your employees. These questions can be related to the employee's mental/ emotional health or physical welfare.

Some of the top questions are-

i) How important is employee wellness to you?
ii) Do you feel work stress is affecting your personal life?
iii) Do you think in-house wellness programs are helpful to you?
iv) Would it be helpful if the organization provided a healthy snacking option?

2. 100% Anonymous

The employee responses must be kept confidential to get genuine responses. In doing so, the index will reflect a more accurate representation of all the indices and parameters under consideration.

3. Provision of Customization

One of the best features of a well-being index is the provision to customize the results. A custom report can be formed based on individual workplace requirements to monitor employee well-being over time.

How can you interpret the employee well-being index results?

Here are three ways commonly used to interpret the results of a well-being index survey.

1. Well-being Pie Chart

A pie chart covering all workplace wellness's essential elements can be formulated. The chart will involve- physical, environmental, spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and social factors in the workplace.
The graph will be formed based on the results and the degree of its penetration. It provides easy access to interpretation of the various wellness factors which affect employee health.

2. Well-being Graph

A Graph can be an efficient way of interpreting wellness initiatives in the workplace. It provides employers with a comparative assessment of programs implemented over the years.Employers can study the graph and improve the wellness initiatives' performance.

3. Well-being Bar-Chart

A bar chart is also a creative way of implementing a wellness program. All the parameters of employee wellness are first discussed with the employees and the stakeholders.

Based on the suggestions, a comparative analysis is done. And a bar chart is plotted for every individual wellness factor. It provides employers with a very easy tool for understanding employee wellness in a very efficient manner.

Employees can track the performance of various wellness indices monthly or annually. This helps to design a wellness program with a more efficient penetration rate.

Final word

The Well-being Index is a yardstick of an organization's best wellness policies and practices. It celebrates the good work employers do to support and promote a healthy workplace. It provides key recommendations on the areas where there is room for improvement.

It is a long-term commitment to transcend toward a better way of work culture. This ensures the everlasting success and productivity of your organization as a whole.

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. What does the well-being index measure?

The well-being index helps measure the overall well-being of an organization's employees. This measurement helps employers enforce changes to uplift the different pillars of employee wellness.

2. How do you measure well-being in the workplace?

The best way to measure workplace well-being is by conducting anonymous surveys. The survey consists of well-researched questions encompassing the various dimensions of well-being.

3. What are the indicators of the well-being index?

Indicators of the well-being index includes the different dimensions of wellness such as emotional, physical, social, spiritual well-being.