3 steps every organization can take to boost employee well-being

Well-being is an essential part of the employee experience. Here’s how to support your people and meet their evolving needs in the year ahead.

Read the report: Explore the trends shaping employee experience in 2021

Employees are more cognizant than ever of needing to manage their own well-being – a need fueled by the increased blend of work and life, managing feelings of pandemic-related isolation, and divisive political conversations.

When we spoke to people as part of our global study of more than 11,800 participants at the end of 2020, well-being emerged as one of the strongest drivers of employee engagement – ahead of typical drivers like trust in leadership and ability for career growth – and right behind our top drivers of belonging and corporate social responsibility.

Well-being is an essential part of the employee experience, particularly in times of disruption, but how do you measure the well-being of your people? And once you’ve done so, how can you support well-being to help drive employee engagement? We answer these questions – and more – below.

How do you measure well-being in the workplace?

In 2020, well-being became a major focus for most organizations, and alongside engagement and enablement, became a core outcome of our engagement model.

At Qualtrics, we measure well-being using a five-point system of indicators:

• Feeling calm at work
• Feeling energized at work
• Rarely feeling overwhelmed by responsibilities at work
• Feeling positive about yourself at work
• Having trusting relationships at work

If you’re looking at that list and thinking: ‘Those indicators are the exact opposite of how I felt at work in 2020’ – you’re not alone. Only 67% of employees rated their well-being favorably.

Only 67% of respondents rated their well-being favorably. This highlights how critical it is to avoid burnout as we continue to live with uncertainty.

What factors impact employee well-being?

What are some of the reasons for this well-being gap? In the past year, employees had to – often simultaneously – manage pivoting to remote work; adhering to evolving quarantine and/or shelter-in-place requirements; supporting children with virtual schooling; adapting to an always-on culture; and dealing with newly blurred lines between work and life.

Our research also revealed a couple of surprising takeaways about what impacts employee well-being:

#1 Senior leaders report a higher sense of well-being than individual contributors. We saw this in our 2020 Global Workforce Resilience Report (conducted mid-2020), as well. There’s a substantial gap between senior leadership and individual contributors – and our data suggest a trickle-down effect: senior leaders have a greater sense of what’s impacting the business – as well as what’s coming, i.e. how work might be impacted in the future. Being better informed of what’s coming versus individual contributors plays a role in boosting their well-being.

#2 Well-being varied by family situation. In particular, single employees with no dependents reported the lowest sense of well-being. While it was a tremendously challenging year for employees with families (e.g., balancing remote work with childcare and/or remote schooling), our research also demonstrates that those who live alone – i.e., employees who had felt a sense of community and belonging at their workplace – have been impacted more than expected or predicted during the pandemic.

Just how much does a sense of belonging influence well-being? According to our research, employees who feel like they belong are almost three times as likely to have a greater sense of well-being: 78% versus 28%.

With that community stripped away due to the pandemic and remote work, employees who live alone may be more vulnerable than those with families to losing their sense of belonging.