Keeping employees happy and healthy should be one of the main priorities of all companies because losing them can cost the company a fortune.
According to Melany Gallant, a certified human capital strategist, the cost of replacing any employee ranges from 30-400 percent of their annual salary when you factor in the time and money it takes to train their replacement, or in some cases, replacements. The average cost of replacement, though, lies right around 150 percent of the employee’s previous annual salary. Employee retention is, therefore, one of the best ways to save the company money.
Whether your company struggles to retain employees or is simply looking for a way to make employees happier and more motivated, here are the two most important aspects to consider.
- Balance: Cultivating a healthy work-life balance has always been important to us here at Isolator Fitness, a company dedicated to helping all people feel empowered to reach their health and fitness goals and live the life they want. One of the reasons our employees came to us initially is they value what the company stands for. Therefore, it has been essential that we help them stay true to these values; otherwise, it would be hypocritical. Furthermore, it has been our experience that if our employees can achieve a healthy work-life balance, they are not only happier but also substantially harder workers.
- Morale: No matter how you look at it, increased employee morale is beneficial to everyone on the team. Attitudes are contagious, which can either be immensely beneficial to your company or dangerously unfavorable.
Providing a beneficial work-life balance to our employees, as a relatively new company, was something we wanted, but also something that we didn’t quite know how to provide. While we felt that we had a good company morale, it was hard not to see the benefit that could come from increasing it even more.
How to Help Your Employees Find Work-Life Balance
We wanted to tackle both of these issues effectively and efficiently, so we went to the employees to get their ideas and opinions. After all, if you don’t know what your employees are missing in their lives, you won’t have any idea what to offer them to improve it.
We passed out wellness surveys that asked them to self-evaluate their physical, psychological and emotional wellbeing. In addition, the surveys asked questions about their family culture, activity level, dietary choices, hobbies, interests and professional concerns.
What we found was that those employees who were participating in two specific acts (eating well and exercising) outside of the office already had a high “on-the-job” morale and were more satisfied with their work-life balance.
What kept them happy?
Their dedication to self outside of the office. It radiated into their dedication of self and company, within the office. The employees who were regularly active, and ate nutritiously had fewer complaints. Encouraging these behaviors amongst the rest of the staff then was an easy choice to boost balance and morale.
By taking the time to educate those not already participating in these activities about the benefits they would receive by adopting at least one of these daily habits, we gained increased employee loyalty. No matter what kind of company you are, identify how you can encourage your employees to better look after themselves — whether it’s through nutrition, exercise, or something else beneficial to their overall health.
Our focus revolved around teaching them about meal prep, where you carve out a small portion of a single day to plan, shop for, and cook all of your meals (and the meals for your family) for the entire week, thus getting more free time during weeknights. We provided each employee with a booklet including 50+ healthy recipe ideas along with detailed shopping lists for each recipe. We then had office-wide potlucks to showcase each employee’s dedication to their meals, which is how we learned that nearly all of our employees took to eating more nutritiously.
Keep Up the Momentum
Your company’s dedication to employees’ work-life balance isn’t something you should only try one time. Instead, it should be woven into your company’s culture. Every six months, we re-evaluate each employee with the same wellness survey so that we can track the effectiveness of our methods and show them the benefits of their efforts.
By promoting a healthy work-life balance at your company, there’s no doubt you will have lower turnover rates among staff. The performance reviews of our healthiest employees are often the most positive reviews. Additionally, upon reviewing our employees’ usage of sick days, we’ve also found that those who eat nutritious lunches and are active are about 60 percent less likely to call out due to illnesses.
It costs more to retrain a new employee than it does to reenergize and rejuvenate the morale of current employees, and in our opinion, that’s worth the investment in the time it takes to listen to employees’ concerns and help them foster healthy habits.
