Strategic business growth: You may be happy at holiday time, but are your employees?

December is traditionally a time of reflection for us all.

Leaders in the business world know that strategic reflection is a valuable tool to up-level a company.

But one piece often overlooked when assessing productivity and success is the focus on employee happiness. We know even the very notion of thinking — are our employees happy — is traditionally not examined in the business world. It should be.

Happier employees are exponentially more engaged with their job, traditionally have a lower rate of absenteeism from work, show increased productivity and have more creativity in problem solving and innovation.

A survey from Prudential Group Insurance shows that 77% of workers now consider a (comprehensive) benefits program a crucial part of their compensation. It’s now smarter than ever to look at offering holistically based coverage with a strong mental wellness offering. Making sure your employees are happy matters. It matters to employees and, ultimately, to your bottom line.

Let’s start with the employee side

As benefits brokers, the most requested new benefit we currently receive from our clients are resources for mental health support for employees.

The pandemic, isolation, inflation and stressful outside of work influences have severely warn-down and impacted many of those we work with in our businesses every day.

According to the American Psychological Association 70% of Americans have increased stress levels due to COVID-19 taking a toll on mental wellness and causing one-third of us to develop a multitude of mental health issues. Employees need to be supported and to feel supported. A flexible benefits program is part of the solution to help reduce their stress.

Now to the employers

According to MetLife’s annual employee benefit trend study, employees are looking to their employers to help support their mental and social well-being through benefits and policies.

The study also found that healthy employees are 74% more likely to be satisfied with their job, 51% more likely to say they intend to be at their organization in 12 months’ time and 53% more likely to be productive. Offering more support solutions will pay dividends by helping your organization stay competitive for existing team members, new candidates, and increase employee retention.

4 elements to enhance employee happiness

Good communication. Communication is one of the most important aspects of personal relationships. Why wouldn’t it be the same in our professional dealings?

Knowing where a person or organization stands on a particular issue helps the other party understand why decisions are being made and anticipate what is coming. Keep everyone informed! The possibility of being blindsided by an employer can give an employee an elevated level of stress.

An employee assistance program (EAP). This is a great start when it comes to mental health support. Often, employers have a free EAP provided by the company’s Life and Disability carrier — but it offers limited resources and often gets forgotten about.

On the backside of COVID, it’s becoming more common for employers to purchase an EAP, directly from a specialized provider, that offers more resources for employees and employers.

Anecdotally, we’ve found employers that have gone down this road are seeing happier employees — not just because employees are using the service, but because they feel supported by their employers’ proactively supporting the mental health of their employees.

Flexibility. Being flexiable in your benefits program puts employees in the driver seat when it comes to their wants and needs. Having a benefits marketplace during open enrollment that lets employees make add-ons to an existing program can be a huge benefit, because a traditional off-the-shelf program is not always perfect for everyone.

Encourage camaraderie. You can’t force people to be friends with one another, but you can encourage collaboration between employees.

Over the years, we’ve seen employers’ frown upon at-work friendships because they can be seen as a distraction.

But Gallup data indicates having a good friend at work is strongly linked to profitability, safety, inventory control and retention. Gallup also found that employees who have good, trusted friends at work are more likely to engage customers and internal partners and get more done in less time. We really like that.

The definition of happiness is, of course, different for everyone.

It can be a difficult balance between what a company needs and whether an employee is “happy.”

We know management can’t control how an employee is feeling. But the fact of the matter is, the world of work has changed (and will continue to do so) as older generations retire and are replaced by younger workers with different values. More now than ever, employees are counting on employers to offer help with problems. And if they don’t feel that support, they will look for a job elsewhere.