Workplace wellness has been a phenomenon for a long time. In recent years, businesses are working to improve employee wellbeing through workplace wellness programmes. Over the past few years, workplace wellness has evolved significantly. Companies began by introducing yoga classes, gyms, and healthy food. Now, programmes are moving beyond this to focus on mental health too as employers are rewarded for investing in employee wellness.

Looking at 22 different studies on wellness programmes, the average return on investment is 3.27 - meaning for every euro spent on wellness programmes, companies can save €3.27 on healthcare costs. Investing in employees’ health pays off and employers have begun to identify benefits beyond reduced costs, such as increased productivity, engagement, and retention rates. Workplace wellness programmes are here to thrive since they offer so many advantages to business owners.

Changes in the workplace lead to changes in recruitment. Job seekers are looking out for companies which prioritise health and invest in their wellbeing. Survey says, in USA where 67% of people said they would like to be in a company where wellness strategies are being focused and 87% of people says they looks for wellness packages when choosing a company.

In Ireland, workplace wellness programmes help companies attract top talent too. Having a well-thought-out wellness programme demonstrates to potential employees that your company is a fantastic place to work as the economy approaches full employment. This is crucial to attracting tech talent in the digital recruitment industry, where the skills gap has reached a critical point.

It is clear from this that companies are starting to take employee wellbeing more seriously. Although this is a step in the right direction there are still many obstacles’ employers face such as low engagement, and lack of data and personalisation in EAP schemes. A survey reported that if 85% of employees have access to different Employee Assistant Programmes, only 25% are using it. Additionally, companies are not aware of their employee’s exact need. 85% of company reported they do not have employee data in a proper and secured way. There is a need for technologies to tackle this challenge of identifying employee needs, and to do so in a secured way. The key to raising EAP involvement is to give employees a secure platform where their data is protected. This is where Empeal can help.

Our CEO Sohini De shares, “When Empeal goes to any company the first thing we look after is the employee data, and ensuring it’s fully protected. You need to give the comfort first to the employees. Only then we can get the right information to provide personalised health and wellbeing interventions”. The other important thing here is technology. The technology that Empeal have developed helps achieve this personalization, and provides an easily accessible and scalable app. There is a lot of things to consider when investing in employees' health and wellbeing. But one thing that is certain is that it’s essential for companies to understand their employees, and to choose the most appropriate platform for the wellbeing of their employees.