Flexible Working Staff Wellbeing: Shift in Staff Wellbeing
New survey results show UK employers have expanded historically underdeveloped financial and emotional wellbeing programmes, and further highlight desirability of flexible working as a benefit
Leading professional services firm Aon have released the results of their UK Benefits & Trends 2020 Survey.
The survey report analyses responses from 200 participants from a wide range of sectors and business sizes, providing insights into multiple aspects of employee benefits.
The focus organisations place on each area of wellbeing was one of the key areas revisited from a previous survey. The 2017 survey results exposed that emotional and financial wellbeing were those supported by the fewest specific wellbeing strategies. This year, the latest survey results show growth in both those categories.
For financial wellbeing, 51% of organisations now have a defined strategy in place, up from 21% in 2017. When it comes to emotional wellbeing strategies, the number of organisations with these in place has grown from 41% to 68%. Whilst the number of physical wellbeing programmes has also increased, the growth rate is smaller. This however does paint an encouraging picture of organisations identifying previously overlooked areas of their overall wellbeing strategies, and then taking action to bolster them.
The survey further highlights the expectations of employees when it comes to their work experience, with 97% expecting more flexible working hours, and 94% expecting agile/home working. Since 79% of staff compare their benefits with those of their peers, it’s important for employers to keep these benefits competitive. Rather worryingly however, of the organisations that do offer flexible working options, 32% admitted they don’t know how many of their staff utilise them. Not only does this hint at a lack of workforce visibility, it also suggests that some companies are falling into the trap of providing benefits without actually tracking their uptake. Without this, it would be extremely difficult to attribute any increase in staff wellbeing to specific benefits offered, and therefore measure their effectiveness.
Bodet’s Time & Attendance Systems can play a key role in your wellbeing strategies, providing a wealth of workforce data allowing you to analyse key areas such as productivity and absences through KPIs such as the Bradford Factor. They also enable you to offer a range of flexible working options, such as flexitime and remote working, without losing workforce visibility or creating additional HR administration. You will also be able to see which staff are utilising flexible working.
When creating and evolving your wellbeing strategy, you can use workforce communication applications available directly on our Kelio Visio X7 Smart Terminal screen to further assist you without the cost of additional hardware. These include company surveys, allowing you gather feedback from your employees, and company bulletins to advertise any new benefits to staff as they clock in each day.
For a free onsite demonstration to see how Bodet’s Time & Attendance Solutions can be used to boost productivity and measure absences, or to make offering flexible working easy, please contact us.
