SOLUTIONS
Let’s be honest, anyone can install a snack bar, replete with bags of chips, trail mix, and fig bars, and call it a wellness perk. But, keeping in mind factors like The Great Resignation, migration patterns, and employees’ push for better quality of life, does a snack bar really cut it?
Not really.
“For many organizations, the missing component of their wellness offerings connects to the larger collective and systemic issues that contribute to stress and burnout in the workplace,” says Julie Uridil, director of partnerships at one of Exos’ Fortune 100 clients. “These are hard conversations to have, and can be driven by top-down organizational health issues.”
So, how do you take a corporate wellness program and turn it into a talent acquisition draw? Here are five ways you can get the ball rolling.
First and foremost, you want to identify your north star. This is incredibly different from your business’ mission statement or company values. It can reflect both of those, however, you want to have a clear difference between the two.
To identify your north star, you need to identify your tension point or problem that you want to overcome. As noted by Uridil, “Just as you would with a creative brief, you start by understanding what the tension is — what is the problem statement. For us, the problem statement was centered around inefficient ways of working that bogged down the system.
For instance:
Your wellness program, regardless of what you choose, should reflect this north star and help solve for it.
We’re likely preaching to the choir here, but wellness programs cost a pretty penny. That said, so does your talent retention and acquisition.
Partnering with a corporate wellness provider that invests in the long-term health and well-being of people speaks volumes about the degree to which you value your employees. After all, your people are your greatest asset.
Furthermore, it’s critical that organizations provide benefits that reflect the needs of their employees. “Figuring out how to meet people where they’re at in their life stages is the future of well-being initiatives and effective management,” says Jonathan Puskas, global vice president and general manager at one of Exos’ Fortune 100 clients.
If you’re already partnered with a wellness offering, a good place to begin evaluating program effectiveness is to conduct an audit and find out if your employees are actually using the perk or benefits.
From there, you’ll be able to identify low-performing perks. We recommend opening up the conversation to your larger workforce and inquiring about what they’d rather have instead. Doing so helps create community, get company-wide buy-in, and build trust.
We can’t emphasize this enough. Your employees and your business (i.e., your bottom line) deserve to be set up for success.
Every business is different and completely unique. And while it might be tempting to follow an implementation template you found online or recreate what your favorite Fortune 100 company did, you shouldn’t.
What should you do instead? Create and implement a plan that equally supports and scales your wellness program in line with your business objectives, employee headcount, and future state. In other words, don’t expect one person to shoulder the responsibility of an entire program. It takes a team and a community to build a foundation for success.
Your wellness program efficacy strategy should reflect and incorporate key areas of business, e.g., events, marketing, sales, and more. By ensuring these departments have a role, you have ample opportunities to celebrate differences, promote diversity, and facilitate stronger creative problem-solving, employee buy-in, and collaboration.
Organizational planning has roots in industrialism, largely due to our affinity for efficiency and performance. However, what organizations often don’t take into account is that social health is the bedrock for optimizing performance.
Why? Because social health helps build community. And community is a critical vehicle to attracting and retaining top talent.
Prioritizing social health at a micro (the individual and/or immediate team) and a macro (the organization and/or greater business) level ultimately empowers individuals and teams at-large to both excel within their positions and boost bottom line performance.
“Social health is all about building communities. Whether they’re micro communities or macro communities,” says Puskas. “You build small communities to make people feel connected to those immediately adjacent to them or with similar interests. That creates a halo effect for the company.”
By building these micro and macro layers of human interaction and connection, organizations actively nurture cross-functional collaboration and a greater sense of purpose across the organization.
On a shorter, lighter note — regardless of whether your workforce is spread across the country, fully remote, or in-office, one type of wellness does not fit all.
“We’re all different people,” says Uridil. “It’s important to recognize that everyone’s individual and lived collective experiences have shifted who we are as people, how we work, and what wellness means to us.”
You want to provide employees with benefits and perks that allow them to set the pace and choose what works best for them and their lives. Empower them with agency and expanded capacity.
Because when your employees thrive, your business thrives too.
Start attracting new talent by offering a fitness solution that checks all the boxes. (Hint: we’re talking about Exos Fit.)
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Talk with a corporate wellness specialist to find out how Exos can empower your team — in person, remotely, or both.
In this call we will:
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