4 | Employee Wellbeing
Employee Wellbeing | 5
Why Employers Should Care
Understanding What Drives Your Workforce
Such personal concerns understandably raise questions for employers about why they should get involved in
their employees’ life outside of work. More pointedly, they wonder, “Why should we care?”
Exactly what drives employee wellbeing, and, by extension, resilience, and what creates that feeling of overall
stability is equally illustrative. Much of it falls outside of an employer’s line of vision.
As a direct matter of “cause and effect,” wellbeing offers definitive and substantial benefits to employers.
This can be clearly illustrated in HWC’s 2012 study, Employee Engagement: The Tangible Benefit of Employee
Wellbeing. HWC surveyed employees from organisations across the UK to understand their current wellbeing
and the impact of their wellbeing on their employer. The study found that employers who supported their
employees’ wellbeing benefited from a healthier, more committed, engaged, and productive workforce.
Twice as many (56%) supported employees said
that their job inspired them as those who were
unsupported (28%)
Supported employees miss nearly 40% fewer
workdays through illness than those who are
unsupported
By their own accounts, work is only one piece of what defines employees and what factors into their overall
sense of wellbeing. Asked to rank their many different life roles in order of priority, employees in one study
identified “worker” in the fifth spot — behind parent, spouse/partner, friend, and religious observer.*
*Thoits, Peggy A. “Identity Structures and Psychological Well-Being: Gender and Marital Status Comparisons.” 6