Six Reasons Why Your Wellness Programme Will Fail

With such emphasis on employee’s health and wellbeing these days. It is often left to the HR department to implement and drive. Yet it is something that will affect the whole organisation.

Here are six key reasons why your wellness programme will fail:

One: No support from leadership or internal communications

Key stake holders need to be the drivers and supporters of a Wellness programme, otherwise it will fail. For example, if you decide that emails should not be answered until after 11am and then the boss is emailing everyone at 9am. Employees will follow the leadership, so they must be the first to trial the programme: if it works for them, then there are no excuses for employees.

If you have an internal communications department, they need to be part of the process especially in a big corporate organisation. If a Wellness programme is to be successful, communication out to employees is key for its long-term success. The Wellness programme should become part of the culture for it to work and fully support employees.

Two: The employees have no idea what the companies ‘why’ is.

Most employees will know what the company does, and some might know how they do it. But unless you are working for a family run business, many employees do not know why a company started and why it wants to help its customers. The aim of a company should be to make its employees feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves.

When people are working towards helping others, they feel happy and successful. For example, The first day I stepped into my corporate aerospace job they never told me the why. They would say we make these parts and that product to help planes fly in the sky.

What a difference it would have made if on my first day working at the company on my desk was these words ‘We are passionate about making planes fly safer and more efficiently, so passengers and pilots can feel assured that they will arrive at their destination safe and sound.’ Looking at that every day would have made me feel more passionate about the job I was doing. I would have known the company why.

Three: Employees don’t have a voice without consequences.

Many organisations say they have an open-door policy. But if you have a manager that is not open to feedback and takes it personally, then this policy will never work.

Training of managers to understand that employees need a safe space to voice their ideas and opinions is key. Often when new employees come into an organisation, they have new ideas and see the company with fresh eyes. This should be nurtured and used as a great opportunity to brainstorm new ideas. If they have lessons from other organisations that they have worked at, be open to learning something new. It could benefit the company in the long term.

If employees get shut down or can’t voice an opinion on the business, they don’t feel like they are contributing, and people need to know they are helping towards a bigger goal.

Four: Employees make mistakes and get reprimanded.

Employees need to know that your organisation is one that nurtures its employees. Mistakes will happen in business. If you use it as a learning experience rather than reprimanding someone, employees will feel that this is a safe place to grow and learn.

Mistakes that are hidden due to employees feeling scared to tell a boss, will only end badly. Openness and transparency are the best way and that includes if leadership have made mistakes that could jeopardise the business. Honesty in those moments is key, because if the company feels like it’s a family run business, then everyone will pull together to get it back into a profitable place. That gives employees assurance that you trust in them to help during the bad times: those that do jump ship, you are better off without anyway.

Five: If you don’t care how your employees feel at work?

You might think why do you need feelings at work? But employees that feel good about the work they do and are passionate, are the ones that will stay. There are three main factors that will affect an employee’s feelings at work.

• Firstly, do they know your why and feel passionate about it?

• Do they enjoy the people that they are working with?

• Can they see a growth path or contributing to your organisation?

Never underestimate the power of other people to keep employees. I stayed years in companies because I loved the people I worked with. But once one person leaves, you will notice it can be a domino effect: the great team you had is gone within 12 months.

Six: If your company encourages overworking and judges those that want a work life balance.

The average employee works 1-2 hours per day over their work hours. For a company, that is a lot of hours they are not paying for. So, you might think why would a company stop that?

If people cannot switch off over the long term, their health will suffer, less sleep, poor eating, not exercising. The mind needs a break in order to process the information they learn each day. If an employee is overworking all the time, then it’s for two reasons: they have too much workload for one person or they are not the right person for the job. If the workload is too much, then this should be seen as an opportunity for someone junior to take on more responsibility and then perhaps long-term hire someone junior. This gives employees growth opportunities which is what you want.

One company in the USA is having employees’ clock in and out and anyone overworking will not get their bonus. If your employees are not taking a break, they will burnout or quit their job.

If an organisation can ensure that these practices are taken care off, then they will have a company that employees will be happy to work at. If you bring in coaching and external factors before dealing with the bigger issues, then your Wellness programme will be like a plaster rather than the cure.