As workplaces start to eye post-pandemic normality, it’s in their best interest to continue with the strides they made toward employee wellness during the COVID-19 lockdown.
According to a RAND Corporation study, every $1 invested in wellness yields a $1.50 ROI. But many employers are incorporating wellness programs for intangible benefits like increased productivity and lower turnover.
As an employer, it’s no question that you should budget for an employee wellness program, but how do you know where your wellness dollars should go? Here are three things to consider before you start spending.
Your Work Environment
If your employees are still working remotely because of the pandemic or your business is fully virtual, you have to keep in mind that wellness is formatted differently for employees that work from home and employees that work in the office. Since you can’t provide remote employees with in-office perks like healthy snacks, on-site fitness classes, or social lunches, take a look at these perks that you can offer your remote workers:
- Adopt time management apps: It’s difficult for remote workers to “leave” the office when the office is their home. By encouraging the use of time tracking apps, you can help your employees avoid burnout.
- Replace in-office perks with subscriptions: It’s best to replace perks in a “like for like” format. For example, replace free fruit in the breakroom with a fruit of the month subscription or office exercise sessions with credit towards a gym subscription.
- Allow employees to tailor their own benefits package: Another great option is to give remote workers a personal benefit budget, that way they can choose what best meets their wants and needs.
If you previously brought 2020 On-site to your office for in-person eye exams for your team, you can also encourage your employees to schedule an eye exam with us when we’re rolling to one of the many neighborhoods we visit across Massachusetts, Rhode Island, or New Hampshire.
Your Budget
Make sure to leave room in your budget to accommodate all sorts of health needs for your employees. For example, if your employees are interested in convenient health care such as on-site flu shots and biometric screenings, you should also make room in your wellness budget for healthy snacks and a gym membership stipend. Your employees will thank you for providing a wide range of health benefits that fit their lifestyle and schedule.
The lesson? Don’t skimp on your wellness budget — according to a study done by Harvard researchers, for every dollar a company spends on preventative wellness, medical costs will fall by $3.27 and absenteeism also drops by $2.73. That amounts to a 6-to-1 return on your investment.
Your Employees
Speaking generationally, Millennials and Gen Z have different wellness needs than Gen X and Baby Boomers. Therefore, a one-size-fits-all approach to employee wellness won’t be effective in a multi-generational workplace.
Gen Z
According to a report released by the American Psychiatric Association, Gen Z is more likely to receive treatment or go to therapy (37%) compared to Millennials (35%), Gen X (26%), and Baby Boomers (22%). Furthermore, Gen Z is more likely to report their mental health as fair or poor (27%), compared to older generations, namely Millennials (15%) and Gen X (13%).
Unlike Millennials and Gen X, who grew up with the idea that talking about mental health problems or asking for help is taboo, Gen Z has grown up in a world where you’re encouraged to get treatment for psychological problems. So, your younger employees are most likely to take advantage of wellness initiatives like free counseling, meditation and mindfulness sessions, and quiet rooms.
Millennials
Millennials, now in their mid-20s and early 30s, make up roughly 35 percent of the workforce. Most of them are in the midst of starting their own families and facing the challenges of early parenthood. However, not having access to childcare benefits at work shouldn’t be one of them.
As revealed in survey data from Next100 and GenForward, 81 percent of Millennials identified access to affordable, high-quality child care as an important issue, and nearly three in four (72 percent) of respondents identified the lack of high-quality child care programs and their cost as a barrier to achieving their professional goals.
Using your wellness dollars to provide child care subsidies or in-office care is a top priority if millennials make up the majority of your employees.
Gen X
The most financially stressed age group in the U.S. is Gen X, according to MetLife’s latest Employee Benefit Trends Study. The MetLife study reveals that 18 percent of Gen X employees say they have no plans to retire — even though they’d like to.
This suggests that as many as one in five Gen X employees think they are too behind on retirement savings to catch up. In fact, 47 percent of Gen X employees do not have a savings of at least three months’ salary and 48 percent live paycheck to paycheck.
To help your Gen X employees reach retirement, give them opportunities to work on their financial wellness. Offer them consultations with financial advisors and invite HR to give presentations on the financial benefits offered by the company such as retirement plans, insurance plans, and financial wellness programs that they may not know about.
Baby Boomers
Baby Boomers are the oldest generation in the workforce and their goal is to reach retirement in the best health possible. Unfortunately, certain health issues affect this age group disproportionately. For example, age-specific incidence rates of prostate cancer rise dramatically from age 50-54, and peak around age 75-79.
Prevention is better than cure when it comes to health, and in order to keep your employees healthy — and save your company money — one of the best things you can do is offer employee health assessments. An on-site health assessment can help your employees identify health risks and underlying medical conditions.
In fact, the aging population is most at-risk for vision-related conditions including age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma, and cataracts. That’s why we recommend annual eye exams for seniors aged 61 and older. You can bring on-site eye care to your company with 2020 On-site, making it more convenient for your older employees to get the care they need and prioritize their health.
Allocate Your Wellness Dollars with 2020 On-site
Employers should think beyond the basic health screenings and offer specialized health services like on-site eye care with 2020 On-site! Provide your employees with quick and convenient eye exams right at the office.
We come at no cost to companies and are in-network with most insurance plans. Plus, we manage all of the logistics and scheduling and provide you with event marketing materials. With 41% of employees saying that vision care is a “must-have,” you can support their health priorities with our eye exams, prescriptions, and a wide selection of quality frames and lenses.
Take your first step towards your employee wellness plan and partner with us at 2020 on-site. Click here to get the conversation started.
