Key strategies for wellness examined at REBA conference

Corporate buy-in, understanding ROI and the importance of branding wellness strategies appropriately were just a few of the themes examined in REBA’s first ever Employee Wellness Conference on 16 June.

The event, which saw more than 200 delegates hear from leading speakers in their field, was a key reminder that for many companies the wellness journey is still in its infancy and there is much to do yet.

For the government wellness is a key strategy – particularly in delivering its aim of bringing around a million disabled employees back into the labour market. “The wellbeing agenda is at the heart of making it all happen,” said Huw Meredith, head of Delivery, Work and Health Unit, Department of Work and Pensions. He urged delegates to contribute to a green paper examining the issue.

Boards need to lead by example

But many businesses are still struggling with implementing wellness in their own organisations. A quick poll of the audience at the conference showed that while 62% of them had a board who was engaged with wellness nearly a quarter (23%) said their board wasn’t, and many felt their boards were failing to lead by example.

The conference heard that buy-in was vital and that ideally businesses need to invest in someone full-time to deal with wellbeing. “I have a full time wellbeing manager and she is a full time resource on this – it’s that important,” said Michelle Bradshaw, compensation and benefits director UK, Ireland & Israel for Oracle. “If you have it tagged on as 20% of your role you aren’t giving it the full attention that it deserves,” she said.

Speakers urged delegates to “walk the talk” when it came to wellness to encourage its adoption throughout the business. “It’s critically important for the board to be actively participating in this. It’s also critical that it doesn’t feel like it’s a top down strategy, we actively encuorage agency as a whole to come up with innovative, creative ideas,” said Steve Bell, global CEO of ad agency Iris Worldwide.

Creativity is key

Creativity was also encouraged when it comes to branding wellness strategies since that can help with exposure and adoption throughout the business. When it came to understanding ROI however opinion was divided as to how or if you could do it or if other measures – such as value of investment – should be applied instead.

Video and presentations from the REBA Wellness Conference 2016 will be available soon.