Employee wellbeing as a corporate differentiator
A new tool that allows Australian companies to understand, measure and improve the wellbeing of their employees is expected to launch in early 2017.
Jointly developed by Deloitte and Medibank, the Wellbeing@Work Index has been touted as Australia’s most comprehensive corporate wellbeing index. Available to organisations with over 100 employees, it will measure wellbeing in terms of four factors – mind, body, purpose and place – and from the perspective of both employees and their company.
Wellbeing – a corporate differentiator
Deloitte CEO Cindy Hook said that wellbeing is becoming an increasingly important talent strategy and differentiator for companies in Australia.
“As the workforce diversifies, employee retention intensifies and the war to recruit the best talent continues,” Ms Hook said.
“Wellbeing is much talked about in Australia, and embraced by many with the best intentions. But there are currently no tools that allow Australian organisations to comprehensively measure and benchmark their health and wellbeing strategy and investment,” she added.
“Wellbeing is much talked about in Australia.”
How will this information be useful to recruiters?
Recruiters should be aware of the new tool, as the information that it generates could be useful for differentiating between companies competing for the same talent. Depending on your recruitment software, you may be able to bring the information in-house.
Good wellbeing in the workplace has been linked to increased employee effectiveness and engagement, raised business performance, and the attraction and retention of top talent.
If your candidate gets a counter-offer, for example, being able to cite accurate, authoritative data to support the better wellbeing factor that your client has to offer just might give you that little bit extra at the negotiating table.
In 2016, Safe Work Australia Chair Diane Smith-Gander, one of Australia’s leading advocates for workplace wellbeing, highlighted the need for organisations to promote positive and healthy environment. “It can only be a great workplace if it’s a safe workplace,” Smith-Gander remarked.
A healthy workplace is also more likely to be a profitable workplace. An AI Group survey in 2015 estimated that employee absenteeism and presenteesim (productivity losses when employees attend work when unwell) cost the Australian economy over $44 billion and $35 billion per year, respectively.
Ideally, recruiters will be familiar with client positions in the market.
It’s about knowing the market
Ideally, recruiters will be familiar with client positions in the market, know who their competitors are and how they all compare. Those who can differentiate the pros and cons of working for this company or that, and are able to support their views with authoritative data, will give themselves a competitive edge.
Software that can provide access to insights such as as those offered by the Wellbeing@Work Index will help recruiters enormously.
For more information about our novel FastTrack360 recruitment software, please contact us today.