Why prioritizing employee well-being is good for business

The importance placed on mental health in the workplace is growing. As it stands, many employers globally have taken steps to invest in workplace well-being. In Asia Pacific (APAC) alone, investment in well-being has risen by 27% since 2020, with 50% of employers allocating 4% of their overall company and benefits funding to well-being.

Despite these efforts, employee well-being is deteriorating. Data indicates that 38% of workers are at risk of mental health issues, with more than 65% already suffering from burnout. An Ipsos survey found that 45% of people across 31 countries cited mental health as a top health concern, surpassing concerns about cancer, obesity and stress.

Intuitively, board members and CEOs understand that corporate culture and employee well-being differentiate an organization, its financial performance, the customer experience, recruitment and retention of top talent.

According to McKinsey & Company, improving global employee wellbeing could create up to $11.7 trillion in economic value worldwide. With employee well-being showing no signs of an uplift, it begs the question: are leaders seeing employee well-being as an investment for business growth or merely a sunken cost, albeit well-intentioned?

Workplace well-being programmes have largely centred on individual support mechanisms; think counselling services, peer support networks, stress management training, yoga/mindfulness practices and flexible work arrangements (a residual development from the pandemic restrictions).

While these initiatives are well-meaning, they still appear to be falling short of what employees truly need. A study in the UK of 46,000 employees revealed that these individual support interventions show no significant impact on overall mental well-being outcomes.

Focus on well-being programmes that support individuals, while important as a baseline, have traditionally run in the background of organizations as a vertical offering. They address the symptoms not the causes, do not impact the overall workplace environment and have limited take-up by employees.

There needs to be a change of approach with a focus on organization-wide transformation of culture including leadership and manager skills and behaviours, workload and work design, team collaboration and creating a sense of belonging.

This begins with leaders — and in some places it is already underway.

Elevator manufacturer Otis Asia Pacific, for example, has taken strides to prioritize well-being through top-down engagement by leadership and bottom-up initiatives from teams. Middle managers in Otis underwent robust training programmes to foster inclusivity and leaders initiated “Meet the people” sessions to create a thriving “speak-up” culture.

Otis Asia Pacific has seen voluntary attrition decrease by over 15% in two years and a fourfold increase in Employee Assistance Programme utilization. It recently won the Wellbeing Organisation of the Year Award at the WorkWell Leaders Awards 2024.

Addressing employee well-being as a horizontal business strategy impacts key touch points of the everyday employee experience.

Singapore’s largest mobile network operator, Singtel, has a host of programmes to support the well-being of every employee holistically – from mental, to physical, to family and financial needs.

"Our employee programmes are designed to cultivate a strong sense of belonging among our people, to empower them to take on impactful work, while supporting their professional and personal growth and promoting diversity. We strongly believe that by creating such a positive environment, our employees can bring their best selves to work to not just contribute to the business, but the communities we support," said Ng Tian Chong, CEO of Singtel Singapore.

At its core, a positive work environment is one that creates psychological safety in the workplace. Project Aristotle, a seminal study by Google, concluded that psychological safety, more than anything else, is critical to making a team work.

The two-year project concluded that the most successful leaders were the ones who understood and influenced group norms and promoted a sense of trust. This was not achieved by authoritative, single-minded visionaries, but rather those who fostered open communication, embraced individuality and encouraged risk-taking within a culture of acceptance.

Beyond the evident benefits to business performance, there are significant risks tied to neglecting employee well-being. With increasing regulations, such as the International Organization for Standardization standards 45003 and 45004 focusing on psychological health and safety at work, many stakeholders now view employee well-being as a critical business risk.

The World Economic Forum’s Healthly Workforces Initiative aims to improve the holistic health and well-being of employees, their families and society at large, by leveraging the workplace setting to promote preventative health.

In recognition not only of the performance upsides but real risks associated with poor worker well-being, WorkWell Leaders, a collective of more than 75 CEOs in Singapore, is focused on making workplace well-being a strategic priority for sustainable growth. It is also leading a coalition of partners to carry out an assessment of well-being programmes on business performance and risk. The results of the study will be published later this year.

Ticking the box on employee well-being will soon not be just optional, so let’s stop viewing it as an expense but rather a cross-functional business imperative for our employees to foster growth and the sustainability of our businesses.