On average, we spend 36.5 hours at work each week, making it a huge part of our daily lives. This is why taking a proactive approach towards workplace health and wellbeing is becoming more and more important for businesses every year.
By failing to establish a culture that encourages and promotes positive wellbeing, you are failing your workforce. Not looking after the wellbeing of your employees can contribute to higher staff turnover, and also makes your organisation less attractive to the next generation, who often value happiness over salary and benefits.
Building your wellbeing strategy should be just as important as building your brand and developing your products and services. In fact, 59% of employers believe that investment in health and wellbeing delivers measurable returns. However, with a growing concerns around budget. 2025 research by CIPD indicated that budget allocations for employee wellbeing are the top concern for 39% of organisations.
Improving your business and achieving organisational goals is important, but it is more important that businesses understand how their goals create real impact for their people. While 64% of businesses are recognising the importance of wellbeing at work. However, only approximately 50% feel their efforts are effective for employees.
This is where learning how to build an effective wellbeing strategy can truly make a difference and show your employees how valued their wellbeing is in the workplace.
Understanding the importance of wellbeing at work
There are lots of different ways that an effective wellbeing strategy can offer great benefits to your employees. These include:
- Improved focus at work
- Reduced stress
- Increased job satisfaction and positive outlook
- Physically healthier and improved general wellbeing
- Better relationships with colleagues and managers
Benefits to your organisation include:
- Higher levels of performance and increased productivity
- Reduced absenteeism and presenteeism
- Less sickness absence
- Attract and retain top talent
- Be seen as a great place to work
By improving the health and wellbeing of your people, you’re not only improving their quality of life, but you’re helping to create a more motivated, engaged and high-performing workforce – resulting in greater organisational success.
Ways to improve wellbeing in the workplace
A genuine wellbeing strategy will only work when the precedent is set from the top down – it has to be part of your culture. You can start with simple actions, such as making sure employees stick to healthy working hours and encouraging staff to eat their lunch away from their desk. You can then start to look at other different aspects of your organisation where you can continue to make a difference:
1) Raise the profile of mental health.
Mental health issues are a major cause of long-term absence in the workplace. The Mind’s Big Mental Health Report 2025 reports that 1 in 5 people in the UK are living with a common mental health condition.
However, there is still misunderstanding and stigma around mental health. Knowing how to manage mental health is important, and training line managers is crucial as they are often best placed to spot the signs in someone who might be struggling. You could also consider introducing mental health or wellbeing days for your employees.
2) Encourage staff to be more active.
In the UK, we sit for an average of 8-9 hours each day. Office workers are spending the majority of these hours sitting at a desk, and research indicates that this poses a real health risk, irrespective of how active people are outside of work.
However, there are things you can do to keep active at work and combat sedentary behaviour. By making sure that your employees are aware of the dangers of sitting for long periods of time, and educating them on how they can keep moving throughout the day, you are helping to prevent illness and maintain a happy and healthy workforce.
3) Offer flexible working
Family life can often impact productivity, so it’s important to listen to your employees and take into account the ever-changing demands of modern life when it comes to your flexible working policy. It’s key that your staff maintain a positive work-life balance in order for them to stay productive, motivated and engaged, and ultimately less susceptible to leavism.
4) Communicate your employee benefits effectively.
Good communication is key to success. If your staff are unaware of what’s available to them, then they’re not going to use it, and you won’t see the return on investment.
Utilise your intranet, send regular email communications and make the most of physical materials by displaying them around the office so that staff are aware of what’s available to them.
5) Consider how your office design affects wellbeing.
By making simple changes to the work environment, you can uplift your employees’ mood, creating a more positive and happier atmosphere, which leads to better working relationships and higher levels of wellbeing. Research by the University of Exeter showed that bringing plants into the office can increase employee wellbeing by up to 47%. You could also introduce artwork, or add a splash of colour to a dull corner of the office – it really does make a difference.
Office design doesn’t always need to be about function either; you may want to turn disused space into a games area with games such as table tennis or pool. This allows employees to rejuvenate and recalibrate their thoughts, making sure they stay motivated. You could also use extra space or larger meeting rooms to introduce stress-busting lunchtime classes such as yoga.
6) Place more focus on promoting a healthy lifestyle.
Providing free fruit and other healthy eating options for your staff is a great start, but you shouldn’t stop there. You need to educate your staff, enabling them to make healthier and sustainable lifestyle choices both inside and outside of the workplace. If you offer your staff discounted gym memberships, let them know, and give them access to educational materials on healthy living.
You may also want to promote healthy behaviours at the office, such as simple mindfulness exercises to help combat stress and retain focus, or offer educational workshops on topics such as resilience, stress management or nutrition and exercise.
7) Incorporate intrinsic motivation into your strategy
Intrinsic motivation is when you carry out a task purely for the enjoyment of it. What you gain from the activity or task comes from within, as opposed to being motivated by external rewards such as money, prizes or accreditation. You can use an employee’s intrinsic motivations to create a productive and engaged workforce, and help individual employees to reach their personal and career development goals.
Every organisation is different, but the above steps are a great place to start considering how you might start to improve the health and wellbeing of your people. The key to success is finding what works and what doesn’t for your organisation, and coming up with a tailored strategy.
Start improving wellbeing at work: Wellbeing strategy toolkit
Ready to recognise the importance of wellbeing at work? We understand it can be difficult to know exactly where to start. That’s why we’ve put together a free Health and Wellbeing Toolkit, which contains all the information you need to start creating your company’s strategy, featuring help and advice on everything from building the business case and exploring supplier options, to implementing and evaluating the process.