Prior to COVID-19, organizations had a different perspective on wellness and how it relates to employee health, retention, and productivity. As workforces have relocated to work-from-home environments, leaders and executives alike have come to understand the importance of workplace wellness and the need to address it. The problem many companies face, however, is “How do you facilitate wellness from a distance?” Fortunately, wellness-promoting technology like Sprout might be able to help.
Since the pandemic began, enterprises have started to prioritize workplace wellness in light of its positive impact on employee health and productivity. According to recent studies, workplace stressors alone have been found to produce negative health-related outcomes as harmful as secondhand smoke. Moreover, the result of such mental and physical anguish costs the United States around $180 billion every year. Both of these statistics discount the additional stressors placed on an individual due to pandemic-related obstacles. Today, in order for workplace wellness to act as a solution for maximizing employee health and productivity, it must be technology-based.
Spur-of-the-moment wellness initiatives like yoga sessions and company lunches are no longer sufficient for sustaining workplace wellness – and not just because in-person gatherings are no longer available. Fragmented programs, like the activities mentioned above, act more as a checked box on an employee perk package than a sustainable and effective support tool for company members. Organizations are approaching a year of pandemic living, which means they need to create more targeted, data-backed solutions that measure and encourage employee wellness. This way, firms can both evaluate the quality of their current programs as well as the areas they want to improve. This, in turn, will influence how a company allocates its resources and how well they support staff and team members. Sprout can be one such solution.
Technologically-supported workplace wellness programs can help companies enable employee health, community, and productivity goals more effectively and more efficiently. By using a wellness app like Sprout, business leaders can track and understand the health trends of their employees using aggregate user data. Aggregate data and reporting ensures businesses can measure the success of the progress and plan strategically to drive ongoing improvements.
The global pandemic has meant that many employees are getting far less exercise than ever before. Not only can Sprout’s data provide insight into organizational trends, Sprout users take, on average, 27% more steps than non-participants. Monthly programming, just-in-time communications and nudges made available through the Sprout platform ensure that all employees are connected and in the know, helping to drive healthy behaviours.
A successful, technologically driven wellness solution also needs to put data back in the hands of its users to empower them to take actionable change. Sprout’s dynamic HRA (developed by clinicians and researchers from Stanford University, the University of Calgary and Mt. Royal University) provides users with a wellbeing score that updates automatically as new data syncs from wearable devices and activity tracking apps. Recommended goals help employees focus on healthy behaviours to drive better health outcomes. Employees earn points, unlock badges, enjoy friendly competition, and through this process of gamification, reach their wellness goals.
For companies, healthier employees means fewer sick days, improved productivity, and a higher likelihood of employee retention. Through data-based wellness apps like Sprout, organizations can effectively measure employee progress and better identify gaps in their current workplace wellness program while employees are empowered to identify health risks and take actionable steps. Learn more about how the Sprout platform is enabling employee wellbeing.
