Are health and wellbeing important to talent recruitment and retention? This was the question posed to respondents of a survey by International SOS. A whopping 82 per cent of the respondents from across 82 countries answered ‘yes’. Nearly three-fourth of these respondents feel mental health will significantly impact their organisation in the next one year. A good 77 per cent agreed that “safeguarding the physical and mental wellbeing of employees is a board-level concern”.
Indeed, the employment relationship is constantly changing. First, there was the wave of resignations, which was followed by quiet quitting. In fact, three in five organisations that were part of the survey admitted to being concerned that quiet quitting will impact their business over the next year.
While more workers are seeking the hybrid model of work, employers are increasingly pressurising their employees to return to office. Why? Employers seem to be ill prepared to handle the issues related to hybrid working, which they are afraid will affect their businesses. With Millennials making up a significant portion of the workforce today, the tolerance of the workforce as well as expectations from the employment relationship have changed drastically. The youngsters in the workforce place a lot of emphasis on their employer’s duty of care. Not surprisingly, most of the employers agreed their employees expected them to shoulder duties towards them, which were once considered the responsibility of governments. Little wonder then that more employees today turn to their employers for reliable information than public services. That is why two-thirds of organisations that participated in the survey admitted that they are expected to look after their employees’ families and dependents in emergency situations or crises.
With many businesses and their employees caught in conflict zones, and other facing inflation and rising cost of living, employers need to now consider it part of their care duty to protect employees on these fronts too.
Employees expecting their employers to offer them support in terms of mental health and wellbeing is not something new. Given the volatile situations that prevail worldwide, these expectations have just gone up and become more urgent.
Clearly, it is not enough to simply offer occupational health services focused on the workplace and related environment. Employees, worldwide, need to be protected and nurtured, and they expect their employers to do it. If employers fail in this regard, they will see their best talent quitting and moving on to employers who can offer them the nurturing and protection they seek.
This will affect the productivity of organisations and result in increasing costs incurred to hire and train replacements for those who quit.
Seven per cent of the respondents of the International SOS survey—comprising risk decision makers responsible for employees, contractors, students, faculty and others within an organisation—were from Australia and New Zealand, 27 per cent from Asia, 24 per cent from Europe, 11 per cent from Africa, seven per cent from the Middle East and 23 per cent from the Americas.
The message is quite clear. The truly ‘great’ workplaces across the globe are the ones that will fulfil the expectations of the newer generations in the workforce, especially in terms of health and wellbeing. These are the employers that will grow their businesses and also care for their employees, and manage to come out triumphant in the ongoing talent war.