How to prepare for an uncertain future is a consistent quandary business leaders are trying to navigate in today’s post-pandemic world. Two questions the C-Suite continually ask their HR team is “what should we be doing?” and “What are others doing?”
It started with the pandemic, then the mental health crisis, and now businesses are trying to understand what to do amid the uncertain future of new global obstacles. And, with good reason. The bottom line is that employee struggles directly impact business costs. You cannot afford to ignore the impacts of stress on the financial health of your organization.
Building healthy, resilient, and engaged workforces is impossible without the right support systems at every level, let alone taking control of your health and wellness. When nothing is normal and every day feels like a crisis, how can you prepare your workforce for an ever evolving and compounding uncertain future?
The case for a holistic health and wellness workplace
You would not hire employees without knowing they are qualified for the responsibilities of a job or that they are authorized to work at a location. Nor would you forego health benefits in the hopes employees never have health needs.
Health and wellness needs are multidimensional and support multiple facets in your organization. Without a strong and flexible wellness program as your safety net, you risk productivity, unnecessary health care costs, retention issues, and more during times of prosperity and uncertainty.
We aren’t talking about a step challenge but one solution that can impact the employee experience, wellness, health outcomes, culture, and more.
Five reasons to adopt a health and wellness culture in your organization are:
- Losing an employee can cost 1.5 to 2x the employees salary, not including lost productivity & knowledge
- Impact of your choices & actions – 77% of global employees trust their employer to do what is right. How you react to challenges and support employees determines outcomes
- CEOs ranked labor shortages as number one external threat to their business in 2022
- 83% of US and Canadian workers suffer from work related stress
- 86% of US and Canadian workers say their financial stress impacts their productivity
Five actions HR can take now to prepare for an uncertain future.
Below, we share our expertise and experience to help you build a safety net for your organization to prepare for an uncertain future.
1. Impact health care costs with the right resources at the right time
You don’t have to take on the impossible task of knowing what each of your employees needs and when. Or, who to engage and when. With medication prices skyrocketing, health care claims cost might feel like the largest uncontrollable expense on your balance sheet. It doesn’t have to be that way. Managing conditions, closing gaps in care, transparency, and improving health literacy are all a part of HSA Easy Pay’s prepaid HSA Mastercard health and wellness solution.
At HSA Easy Pay, we make it simple to understand and support the health of your workforce with our end-to-end cloud-based services. Health insurance and group benefits are not your only safety net. We help you build alongside a custom health and wellness experience with our flexible HSA and WSA Mastercard solution.
2. “Always on” recognition to retain productive employees
Humans crave certainty. When we feel uncertain, it registers in our brains as a situation that we must fix, and we won’t feel completely comfortable until we do. This feeling of discomfort reduces memory capabilities and lowers performance. This isn’t a high performer versus low performer issue, it is human.
It can be a challenge to maintain a positive and supportive work culture amid so much uncertainty. Recognition programs provide a company wide channel to engage employees on a personal level and communicate your cultural values. When done right, rewards and recognition can create a memorable experience, and in turn, make your messaging “stickier”. Whether you wish to emphasize current values or recalibrate them to fit the times, rewards, and recognition amplifies your voice.
HR doesn’t have to be the only one delivering recognition, with recognition helping to reduce stress and increase feelings of connection and belonging, integrating it into your wellness program for everyone to see and participate in helps team members feel appreciated.
3. Create psychological safety at work to avoid voluntary turnover.
According to the Coqual.org, “undermining behavior from managers” is a major factor in women dropping out of tech. In fact, the same Coqual survey found that 87% of women had witnessed demeaning comments from their colleagues and 66% felt excluded from key social and networking opportunities because of gender.
While this represents one industry, the truth is that this is widespread across industries. And unfortunately, companies continue with the same “one and done” approaches, like mandatory diversity training or one. It is vital that companies rethink traditional approaches. This includes investing in creating and fostering psychologically safe environments now, otherwise, you are choosing the cost of turnover
Voluntary turnover cost U.S. businesses over $1 Trillion in 2019. The cost went even higher during the past two years. It is vital that companies rethink traditional approaches now. This includes investing in creating and fostering psychologically safe environments, and a robust wellness program is your safety net for creating and maintaining inclusive workplace culture of belonging
4. More adoption of wellness, more actual wellness, with less admin & overall cost.
Weave seven pillars of wellness together including:
- knowing your numbers
- mental health
- physical activity
- nutrition
- alcohol free
- no smoking or tobacco products
- financial health
For increasingly thin HR teams, many lean on App-based internal wellness solutions. But Apps often only focus on one tactic – such as employee challenges or employee training – do not work because they of their singular focus.
And just because something is free – such as emailing hints, tips and tricks to your team to show your wellness environment for your employees – does not mean it is working. With more than 60% of emails going unread, dispersed workforces, and hard to engage employees, you end up making more work for yourself with lackluster results.
For HR, giving your team and your workforce one destination for physical, mental, emotional, social, financial, and community health along with access to benefits is your safety net during times of uncertainty. And it is even better when you can combine employee communications, culture, recognition and partners within.
5. Go beyond HR to reduce burnout and increase community.
The old saying, “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together,” is not just a passing thought, but a strategy lever you can pull during uncertain times. While employees want to hear from leadership, they also want to contribute to your culture in their own unique way. In doing so, you create a sense of belonging, safety, and community.
Creating certainty for an uncertain future
Leveraging wellness in your organization helps you and your organization move from chaos to confidence. To help you find resources to create your wellbeing safety net, we’ve put together some additional resources you might find beneficial.
- Employee Wellness Is Everyone’s Responsibility
- Six Lesser-Known Flexible Wellness Spending Account Options for Your Employees
- Why You Should Offer Your Employees a Wellness Spending Account
- 6 Recruitment and retention trends in 2022
- Use your HSA / WSA to Assist Your Goal of Living a Holistic Healthy Life
For most companies, when uncertainty arises, they want to talk about their challenges with an expert to help them navigate situations and support decision making. Request a demo with the HSA Easy Pay team and we can assist in your wellness needs.
Your Health and Wellness Insights
The HSA Group utilizes a fully customizable healthcare technology solution. We provide flexible pre and post pay options. Fast digital onboarding, robust real-time reporting and automated adjudication for 100% of claims are table stakes to us.
We believe healthcare is stressful enough. Paying for it shouldn’t be.
If you’re curious how The HSA Group’s HSA and WSA health and wellness solutions can help you create certainty in an uncertain future, contact us today.
