How to support your employees’ social wellbeing with a dispersed workforce
Social wellbeing relates to employees’ relationships with their colleagues, how valued they feel as individuals and their overall sense of belonging and inclusion at work. Over the past year, employees from all sectors have been either working from home, on furlough or working on-site at a distance from others, meaning businesses have had to work extra hard to keep their employees feeling connected.
Now that restrictions are continuing to ease across the UK, the challenge of supporting employees’ social wellbeing continues. Many employees are preparing to return to work but, with hybrid working likely to define the future of work post-Covid, many employees will also be unlikely to spend as much time in a central office or workplace again. Thanks to technology, it’s very easy for employees be connected, but feeling connected is a different story. As a result, businesses need to establish long-term strategies to support their employees’ social wellbeing, wherever they’re working.
The role of culture in supporting social wellbeing
Before providing practical tips, it’s important to note the role culture plays in your employees’ social wellbeing. Having a strong, inclusive culture where employees feel valued, listened to and are encouraged to build relationships with their colleagues, will naturally nurture your employees’ social wellbeing. Employees will feel like they belong to a community, rather than just a cog in the machine.
With many workforces set to be dispersed long into the future, it’s essential that businesses look at their culture and consider ways in which they can strengthen their community. Part of this is providing valuable opportunities for employees to connect with each other and have meaningful interactions both online and offline. Here are some key ways to do that.
Regular catch-ups and check-ins
Having the opportunity to connect with colleagues on a regular basis is vital for your employees’ social wellbeing and mental health, whether they’re working from home or not.
Catch-ups and check-ins are easy to schedule and help employees stay connected with their colleagues, raise questions or concerns with their managers and feel part of the wider team. Whether it’s team meetings every morning, a company call every month or informal catch-ups with colleagues once a week, it’s so important to ensure that regular check-ins are happening across your business.
Online activities and events
Organising regular online activities and events will also strengthen your business’ culture and community. From team quizzes held over Zoom or competitions hosted on an internal platform, online events give employees the opportunity to have fun with their colleagues and strengthen their relationships.
The great thing about hosting events online is that they’re inclusive, so whether an employee works at home, on-site, or splits their time between the two, they can still get involved and enjoy informal interactions with their colleagues. The key is making your activities and events interactive. That way, your employees can build and strengthen their relationships with their colleagues, even those they don’t work with closely, which will further support their social wellbeing.
In-person events
While we’re living in a digital world, in-person events certainly aren’t a thing of the past and something that businesses should focus their attention on, as soon as restrictions allow. There’s something special about meeting people face-to-face, especially considering we’ve been deprived of that for so long.
Being able to connect with colleagues in person means that your employees aren’t restricted by technology and can freely talk with different people. On top of that, physically coming together as a business for an event truly reinforces a sense of community. If you give your employees enough notice, everyone should be able to attend and enjoy the company of their colleagues.
Regular communications
As has been demonstrated over the past year, internal communications play a vital role in keeping employees informed, connected and supported. With businesses transitioning to hybrid working, communications will become even more crucial, not only to your employees’ social wellbeing but also to their overall engagement at work.
Having a central platform where your business can share key messages is a great way to ensure your communications are inclusive and accessible to all employees.
Pulse surveys
As acknowledged by Engage for Success, Employee Voice is a key enabler of employee engagement. But it’s also essential for your employees’ social wellbeing too. Having regular opportunities to share feedback, ask questions and offer ideas will help your employees feel valued as individuals and as part of a community.
Sending out pulse surveys throughout the year and even organising meetings, where employees have the opportunity to use their voices, will demonstrate that your business cares about individual opinions. This again links back to culture, because creating a working environment (online and offline) where communication is encouraged both ways, really helps employees feel connected.
Reward and recognition platforms
For your employees to have good social wellbeing and feel like they belong at your business, having a shared sense of purpose is key. This is where reward and recognition platforms come in because they not only show your entire workforce how individual actions have a meaningful contribution, but how everyone is working together towards a collective goal.
Peer-to-peer recognition takes this one step further too because employees have the opportunity to demonstrate their appreciation and respect of their colleagues. Sending kudos to a teammate and celebrating their achievements, alongside other colleagues, helps them build and strengthen their relationships at work. Equally, receiving recognition from a colleague or the business reminds employees that they’re a valued member of the team.
Platforms that host all of your reward and recognition activities are key, because employees get true visibility of what is going on in your business, say “thank you” to their colleagues and celebrate positive moments as a team, wherever they’re working.
In essence, to support your employees’ social wellbeing in the new world of work, it’s all about focusing on inclusivity and creating moments of togetherness. Whether that’s events, activities, surveys, rewards or recognition, making everything accessible to your employees, wherever they’re working, will ensure that your culture and community remain strong.
This article is provided by peoplevalue.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, peoplevalue – The Employee Engagement Company
We are a leading provider of employee reward&recognition, benefits delivery&wellbeing solutions.
