The Next Evolution of Wellbeing is About Performance

October 15, 2024 9 mins

The Next Evolution of Wellbeing is About Performance

Employers are concerned that previous wellbeing strategies aren’t moving the needle enough. But when wellbeing is part of an organization’s culture, it has positive effects on costs, engagement and productivity.

Key Takeaways

Wellbeing programs have historically targeted employees as individuals. Embedding wellbeing into company culture benefits the entire organization.
By using data and advanced analytics, employers can see wellbeing outcomes that optimize costs, increase employee engagement and ultimately improve productivity.
Leadership plays a major role in transforming wellbeing into a source of increased productivity.

Workplace wellbeing has evolved from a menu of perks that was a component of employee benefits, to a vital part of an organization’s people and business strategy. However, as wellbeing becomes more integrated into company’s DNA, leaders are seeking better ways to measure the effectiveness of wellbeing programs and the value they bring to the company.

“Our clients want to know how they can enhance the wellbeing of their workforce to improve individual outcomes, as well as move the needle on key performance indicators for the business,” says Rachel Fellowes, chief wellbeing officer at Aon. “The good news is, we now know that wellbeing strategies can do both if designed and executed effectively.”

From Perks to Productivity Gains

When wellbeing efforts first became part of the mainstream, they were well-intended, yet modest in their reach and goals. Perhaps a health insurer would offer a small discount on premiums if the company implemented some aspects of wellbeing, such as healthier snacks in vending machines or discounted gym memberships.

Wellbeing then evolved into multipronged, yet still somewhat siloed programs based on individual pillars of wellbeing, which were generally aimed at one type of wellbeing (physical, emotional, financial, social and work life). From there, employers recognized that individual programs had limitations, and the lack of performance-related return on investment was causing C-suite support for initiatives to wane. Companies needed an integrated wellbeing strategy that could drive outcomes for both their people strategy, as well as their overall business strategy.

KPIs to Measure the Performance of Wellbeing Programs

Leaders are increasingly asking (and being asked) which wellbeing strategies are effective, and which are less impactful to help guide future investments. Being clear on what key performance indicators (KPIs) drive effective outcomes is critical. Our health and wellbeing teams have identified three evaluation criteria:

Cost optimization. This encompasses employee ease of access to care, the level of personalized care and effective ecosystem management to drive cost efficiencies. Analyzing the use of programs can help with resource allocation. Which investments have the desired impact?
Increased employee engagement. Measuring engagement includes individual, team and leadership experiences that go beyond traditional engagement into new realms of human insight. Survey-based analytics can help employers improve engagement by providing personalized and relevant wellbeing programs that resonate with employees' needs and preferences, fostering a more engaged and motivated workforce.
Improved productivity. New integrated analytics dashboards allow organizations to measure wellbeing, engagement and productivity side by side to show positive correlations in the data. Leading organizations are not only measuring and reporting employee wellbeing, but also linking executive incentives to ongoing KPI improvements. Productivity gains can be made by using analytics to identify barriers to performance that are rooted in wellbeing. Does a lower-performing team have poor emotional wellbeing? This may indicate that their workload isn’t being managed properly.

Collecting and analyzing data to improve wellbeing outcomes is not a new exercise, but with more and more data available, many employers are having difficulty separating the signal from the noise. However, this kind of analysis is crucial to wellbeing KPIs. By proactively managing the relevant data and focusing on what affects employees the most, organizations can use analytics to create a healthier and more productive work environment.

11%

Improving employee wellbeing factors can enhance company performance by at least 11 percent and up to 55 percent.

Source: Aon’s 2022-2023 Global Wellbeing Survey

Read the Report

Employers feel as though they are ‘overprogrammed,’ yet still ‘under-outcomed’ with their current wellbeing strategy. The solution is to focus on tangible business results driven by wellbeing.

Rachel Fellowes

Chief Wellbeing Officer, Aon

Linking Wellbeing to Wider People Strategies

Many employers are looking to push wellbeing beyond a silo. In some cases, this means embedding wellbeing into an organization’s overall people strategy. Addressing employees’ wellbeing has historically been thought of as a health issue, especially since it was previously treated only as physical wellbeing. But as wellbeing evolves, it has become apparent that it is just as much a people and business issue. For example, if a manager has an employee with poor emotional wellbeing, the employee’s performance may suffer. But if it’s the manager who has poor wellbeing, the whole team’s performance can suffer.

Some ways we are seeing employers broaden their wellbeing initiatives include:

Providing on-site clinical services like vaccinations, health screenings and full-time clinics to drive improvements in office-based location strategies
Looking at wellbeing in conjunction with safety programs — someone with poor wellbeing may be more susceptible to accidents, as awareness of their surroundings may be diminished. Mental wellbeing may also suffer if employees don’t feel the company has made the proper commitment to safety
Focusing on benefits that support financial stability, such as financial wellness programs and access to mental health resources, for lower-income employees, who often face unique challenges and stressors that can impact their overall wellbeing and job satisfaction
Pursuing new wellbeing interventions and platforms supporting employee experience to drive engagement and productivity strategies

Implementing Change with a Regional Perspective

Each organization’s workplace wellbeing journey depends on its values, goals, as well as the cultural norms and local regulations of where the firm and its people are located.

Maintaining both global consistency and sensitivity to local customs and norms around issues of wellbeing is important. Companies are spending more time getting this right in all areas of health and wellbeing.

Multinational companies are focusing on education and interventions on key topics such as mental health and women’s health. Ecosystem management to enable this can be complex, as not every solution will work in every country, and some areas may have a more robust network of providers and partners to work with. But more employers are moving toward global minimum standards, which helps the company live up to its values while allowing for regional differences in implementation.

For example, organizations across the globe are focusing on women’s health initiatives with comprehensive women’s health programs — from cervical cancer and HPV vaccination to condition management and physical health promotion focused on keeping female employees active.

In the area of mental health, many organizations are moving toward digital-first and outcomes-based psychotherapy solutions. Customized solutions for trauma-based response predominantly in healthcare, police, fire, transportation and content moderators, are also gaining traction. And industries like manufacturing, oil and gas, and education are following suit and increasing mental health resources.

While these approaches are global in nature, they must be implemented in different ways locally. For example, some European employers have noted that their employees are more reluctant to use an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), but those same programs in Latin America are highly popular.

68%

Employees who say they feel connected to their organization's culture are 68 percent less likely to feel burned out at work very often or always.

Source: “Empowering Workplace Culture Through Recognition,” Gallup and Workhuman®, 2023

Case Study

Improving Health and Wellbeing at a Global Manufacturer

A global manufacturer wanted to establish a robust health and wellbeing strategy. With 9,000 employees worldwide, they wanted to align a global framework of minimum standards of care to achieve optimal health outcomes and address the needs of employees in their own country.

Aon gained a comprehensive understanding of each location’s baseline through interviews with local leaders, assessing population health risks and using Aon’s Global Wellbeing Maturity Index. An assessment of 70 percent of the company’s workforce found the most significant risks employees faced were poor financial health, sedentary lifestyle and obesity.

From this, Aon helped the client create a data-driven, three-year implementation plan to close gaps between local standards and global guidelines, and establish a framework to track progress. The new wellbeing program included initiatives to improve underlying health factors such as obesity, smoking and substance abuse.

There is a cultural element to wellbeing — one that must go beyond programs and strategies and be embedded throughout the entire organization, from line workers to the CEO. It starts with the C-suite. If senior leaders signal that they are committed to systemic change, they can embed wellbeing in the organization and work toward the end goal of sustainable performance.

A wellbeing strategy is an investment in employees, but it only supports those who currently work there and participate in existing programs. Changing the culture to support sustainable performance, however, invests in the entire company, its current employees and even those who come after. A culture of sustainable performance allows employers to build the wellbeing infrastructure needed to drive a greater focus on business strategy, relevancy and productivity.

We see organizations claim wellbeing is truly part of their culture, but then their incentive plans only have financial targets. There’s no sense in trying to make a cultural change without accountability.

Helen Payne

Global Director, Human Sustainability

However, changing workplace culture to one of sustained performance is no quick feat and it’s not for every company. It takes commitment from the most senior leaders, and it takes time. Workplace wellbeing touches every aspect of the workforce and how it functions. By focusing on how better wellbeing can improve the KPIs of the business — specifically, costs, employee engagement and productivity — employers can begin to embed wellbeing strategies into their culture in order to achieve sustainable performance.

“We can no longer just hand an employee the login to an app and say, ‘Good luck with your wellbeing,’ putting the onus on them to do the work by themselves,” says Fellowes. “It’s the employee’s responsibility to look after their own wellbeing, but it’s the leader’s responsibility to create the conditions to make that possible.”

Aon’s Thought Leaders

Susan Fanning

Head of Wellbeing Solutions, Asia Pacific
Rachel Fellowes

Chief Wellbeing Officer, Aon
Carlos Ferreyra

Head of Advisory and Specialty, Health Solutions, Latin America
Helen Payne

Global Director, Human Sustainability
Kembre Roberts

Senior Vice President, Health Solutions, North America

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