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WHAT WORRIES EMPLOYEES
By Nausheen Popat
This is what worries your employees – and here’s
what you can do to help
Employees who rate their company as ‘caring’ are far
more likely to be engaged. The biggest enemies to
employee engagement are worries over stress, health
and money. For the sake of your employees, and for your
business, it’s important to address these worries and
take action to allay them. High employee engagement
drives productivity, profitability, performance quality,
and positive customer perceptions. It therefore makes
good sense to invest in initiatives that make your
employees feel cared for.
Let’s look at the key worries and how addressing them
will mean you take better care of your employees while
also putting your company ahead of the competition.
1. Stress and lack of work-life balance
A recent global survey of employee wellbeing found
that 87% of workers are stressed. Of those, 15% said
their stress levels were unmanageable and 21% said
they didn’t receive adequate support to help them
manage their stress.
There is a definite trend towards people worrying
more about their social wellbeing. In particular,
they’re finding themselves too busy to spend
sufficient time socialising with friends and enjoying
hobbies. Provide a workplace wellness programme
with stress management. The survey found that 68%
of employees of all ages and 73% of millennials felt
a wellness programme incorporating support with
stress management could encourage them to remain
in (or choose) a job.
It’s also worth mentioning that the preferred methods
for managing stress include talking with friends
and family, sleep and exercise. This underlines the
importance of a healthy work/life balance. Easing off
on pressure to carry on working out-of-hours could
make a positive difference to productivity and reduce
stress-related absenteeism.
2. Physical health and wellbeing
Along with their stress levels, employees are worrying
more about health issues like getting enough good
quality sleep, controlling their weight and eating well.
Two in three admit to going into work when they’re
feeling too ill, even though they recognise that their
productivity could drop by one fifth as a result. Provide
health classes and re-examine your health cover.
Organising a programme of health, fitness and nutrition
classes will give your employees practical help and
show that you care. The health aspect could include
classes on quitting smoking and controlling alcohol
consumption, as well as managing stress. In order to
tackle presenteeism – people coming to work but not
performing at full capacity due to illness – it’s vital to
train your managers to show sensitivity to their team’s
wellbeing. This includes making sure employees know
they can open up to them about their health worries.
3. Financial wellbeing
Only around one quarter of employees express
confidence about their financial circumstances. While
there are signs this is improving globally, one recent
study found that here in the UAE, people are actually
feeling increasingly insecure about their finances.
Nearly one quarter of employees in the UAE admitted
to financial stresses including:
• Living paycheck to paycheck
• Having large personal debts
• Struggling to pay household costs
Around 70% of these said money worries were
affecting their work and had resulted in them taking
more days off work.
4. Provide confidential financial advice and
planning tools
Personal finances are something many people prefer to
keep private, but money worries can take a huge toll
on an employee’s state of mind and impact negatively
on their productivity. Consider offering confidential
consultations with an independent financial advisor,
either free of charge or at a discounted rate.
5. Provide health checks, pensions and community links
Of the people surveyed who felt most ready for
retirement, 70% said they had regular health checks. So
including check-ups in your health insurance package
for employees is a good idea. Offering a pension plan
still isn’t standard practice among UAE employers.
Providing one will give your company an edge and
help to ease your employees’ retirement fears.
6. Tackling employee worries head-on
Whatever provisions you put in place to help your
employees tackle their worries, simply reassuring them
that they’re not facing these issues alone will go a long
way. By holding onto good people and making sure
they’re able to give their best, your company will reap
the biggest rewards.