Now more than ever it is important for employers to have heightened awareness of their employees’ health and wellbeing.

We all know that happy and healthy employees translate into a productive, engaged and motivated workforce, in turn supporting business growth and development.

We also know that the fear of job loss, demands of work and the sense of an obligation to work are factors in presenteeism, or workers being on the job, whilst not being able to properly function, due to being unwell.

In recent months, as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic, employers are having to adapt their employee wellness programmes, as well as health and safety procedures, to be more sensitive to the needs of staff either working remotely or from revised workspaces.

Pre COVID-19 employees within workplaces likely received any number of wellness initiatives, with examples including breakfast/lunch, yoga/exercise classes, gym memberships, employee assistance programmes, cycle to work benefits, team building days, access to mindfulness apps, as well as the day to day interpersonal relationships, almost all of us, rely on. With the prevalent rise of shared modern workspaces, employees have become ever more accustomed to these wellness initiatives.

As well as employers needing to encourage honest communication, it can be helpful for them to be collecting this information securely, and at regular frequency in an automated fashion. The positives, that they’ll be able to better support personal circumstances, as well as having the data to hand to further develop wellness initiatives to best suit the needs of the workforce.