As featured in HR Magazine ‘How to avoid wellbeing washing in HR’ e-book supplement in June 2023
What is ‘wellbeing washing’?
Wellbeing washing is a type of virtue signalling – pushing wellbeing initiatives to improve perception rather than genuinely supporting employee wellbeing. This may involve wellbeing programs that have little impact or relevance, distracting from other organisational concerns or conflicting with working practices. Wellbeing washing can harm your company’s reputation and significantly decrease employee trust and engagement.
What are the best ways to show ROI on wellbeing investments?
Following the pandemic, there has been a rise in investment in employee wellbeing, allowing employers to demonstrate their dedication to both mental and physical health. Regardless of this upward trend, we need to showcase a return on investment (ROI) to ensure continued funding and support and to avoid being labelled as “wellbeing washing”.
Getting the most out of wellbeing initiatives: Key steps to calculating return on investment
Estimating the ROI for HR initiatives can be challenging, but it is essential to securing financial support. Here are some critical steps to follow:
1. Identify your objectives
When it comes to your wellbeing initiatives, what are your goals? Consider both the organisational perspective (such as reducing absenteeism, increasing productivity, and improving employee engagement) and the employee perspective (what do they require and what do they appreciate?) for a well-rounded approach.
2. Collect the data
Leverage data to inform and bolster these objectives, including everyday employee needs and absenteeism rates. Remember also to gather employee feedback through surveys and focus groups to gauge their sentiment.
3. Analyse the data
When analysing this data, be sure to search for consistent patterns, possible overlaps with other data (such as attrition, exit interviews, demographics, and geography), and potential trends. To monitor progress, compare data from both before and after implementation. Additionally, take this opportunity to consider how you can track future progress through data.
4. Calculate the ROI
You could analyse the expenses associated with incorporating well-being initiatives and compare them to their monetary advantages, such as decreased healthcare expenses, heightened productivity, and better employee retention rates.
Top tips for HR professionals
The following key considerations should be kept in mind when following the above steps:
Align with your business goals and objectives:
Wellness programs can tackle a diverse set of organisational obstacles. The secret to securing funding is to ensure that the programs you wish to implement will solve your specific problems and meet your objectives, identified through the data analysis you have conducted.
Align with company culture and working practices:
Make sure your efforts are not hindered by tradition and routine. For instance, if you invest in a resilience training program to combat burnout and overwhelm but schedule it for 6 pm instead of encouraging people to log off, you’re bound to harm the credibility of wellbeing initiatives. If managers and work practices don’t align with the initiative’s objective, it will ultimately have an adverse effect.
Use data to support evidence-based decisions:
Guarantee the credibility of your suggestions by utilising trustworthy internal and external evidence. Strengthen your internal data analysis with external research and metrics corroborating your argument. Consider presenting your data in monetary terms to convey its value better. There are various approaches to calculating ROI, so simply clarify your method and reasoning. For instance, when calculating attrition, you could quantify it as three or six months of base salary per departing employee totalled annually.
Suppose you can provide a sensible justification for selecting the specific time frame (such as the standard hiring duration). In that case, you can transform your attrition rate into a more significant financial figure and subsequently evaluate the monetary benefit of reducing attrition by 1%.
Focus attention on outcomes, not outputs:
Instead of simply reporting on data for the sake of it, it is essential to focus on the value it brings. For instance, instead of just measuring the number of employees engaging in wellbeing initiatives, concentrate on the actual impact those initiatives have had on employee health and overall wellbeing metrics, and use that as a basis for analysis.
Use case studies and success stories
The art of storytelling is a compelling approach to demonstrating value. Share narratives of employees who have reaped the rewards and the substantial impact the initiatives have made on their overall health and well-being.
On a final note…
The act of wellbeing washing occurs when leaders and organisations fail to follow through on their promises or act in accordance with positive wellbeing practices. Attempting to promote mental health resources while simultaneously subjecting employees to highly stressful work environments will not only devalue the investment, but it will also decrease the likelihood of success and diminish the ROI of the initiative.
When you align your wellbeing initiatives with broader business goals, communicate their importance, and use real-life examples to showcase their impact, you can make a clear-cut argument for the significance of investing in employee wellbeing in your organisation.
At GemmaHR, we provide HR coaching and mentoring support to help navigate a range of HR priorities, including promoting and implementing effective wellbeing policies. Contact us today for more information.
