Dive Brief:

• Organizations that focus on improving performance in areas impacting employee well-being are likely to see a corresponding improvement in certain business metrics, according to the results of Aon's 2021 Global Wellbeing Survey, published last month.
• In a statement, Aon said it found "a direct connection" between well-being and business results. For example, organizations that improved well-being performance by 3% saw a 1% increase in customer satisfaction and retention, while an increase of 3.5% translated into a 1% increased in both employee satisfaction and customer acquisition.
• The report focused on a number of actions that may improve well-being, ranging from shifting organizational policies to make remote work more accessible to instituting mentorship programs to offering solutions that promote workers' emotional health. The online survey included responses from 1,648 companies in 41 countries.

Dive Insight:

In light of the stress and anxiety caused by the pandemic and its fallout, exhaustion has become yet another concern for employers globally. Burnout, long a buzzword in HR circles when discussing well-being initiatives, may have become even more prevalent as workplaces shifted to remote work.

Boosting well-being investment was a popular response among employers even during the earliest months of pandemic-induced lockdowns. In an April 2020 Willis Towers Watson survey, nearly half of employer respondents said they were increasing healthcare benefits due to COVID-19, and one-third planned changes to paid time off or vacation programs. But Aon's report emphasized that well-being initiatives would need to go beyond the introduction of new programs.

"Wellbeing is so much more than programmes and individual initiatives; it is a long-term people and performance strategy, using resources to achieve resilience goals over a sustained period," Avneet Kaur, Aon's well-being solutions leader for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said in the company's statement. "Leadership support and buy-in are critical factors in creating a culture and a wellbeing strategy that can positively impact workforce resilience and overall company performance."

Executive leaders have a particular role to play in establishing psychological safety at work, one CEO recently told HR Dive.