Enhancing Retention and Wellbeing: The Power of Corporate Wellness Programs

I’m still flabbergasted that in an August StatsCan report, 11.9% of full-time employees indicated planning to leave their job in the next 12 months while another 5.9% quit their job in the last six months.

This statistic should be seen as alarming to employers - it is to me! Not only is the recruitment process time-consuming, it can be as expensive as one-half to two times the employee’s annual salary, according to Gallup.

With increases in turnover, it’s difficult to know the exact reason why employees move on from their current company, but a study done by Flexjobs found that 31% of employees leave due to lack of or poor health benefits, 22% because of poor mental health support, 49% of employees leave due to a lack of healthy work-life boundaries, and a whopping 62% of employees leave due a toxic company culture.

In response, forward-thinking companies have begun to be more proactive about their retention strategies by offering corporate wellness to their employees.

Harvard Business Review (HBR) defines workplace wellness as: “An organized, employer-sponsored program that is designed to support employees (and their families) as they adopt and sustain behaviors that reduce health risks, improve quality of life, enhance personal effectiveness, and benefit the organization’s bottom line.”

The parent company of our partners at Mercer Canada, Mercer Marsh Benefits has just released their launch of “Health on Demand 2023.” This year they summarise and highlight the thoughts, preferences, needs and requests from over 17,500 employees surveyed across all generations from around the world. Truly an insightful read!

Among the finding, results show that employees globally value digital health within their benefits suite. Our company, MediResource Inc. , has software called Health Connected that fits in this category. 

Health Connected allows users to take a health risk assessment, which then helps direct them, and guide their employers, to find, connect and obtain healthcare or self-manage their own health and well-being with a personalized digital health coach.

Tools like ours also empower employees to participate in motivational solo and group challenges and activities that help them develop and maintain healthy habits.

Employees who are able and encouraged to participate are ready to engage — and engagement is often recognized as essential to retention. Engaged employees are involved and invested in their work and workplace. They show up ready to give their best, even when times are hard.

Supporting employees’ mental and physical well-being has been shown to provide an abundance of benefits to employees and companies. If you’ve thought about launching a new wellbeing initiative, or augmenting your existing benefits program for the benefit of the wellbeing of healthier, more engaged workforce, please reach out to me directly. I’d love to chat.

#employeeengagement #employeewellness #workplacewellness #employeeretention