Any approach to quality of life at work must be consistent with your company's strategy. This is essential for a wellness project to work over the long term.

To do this, you have to clearly identify the HR issues that need to be addressed, whether that be turnover, internal communication, commitment, team cohesion or talent retention. The first step is to put them in order, because it is impossible to address them all at the same time! These issues can then be broken down into HR objectives. In practical terms, having a clear understanding of the issues helps you to identify and offer the sorts of wellness activities your employees want: flexibility exercises, team building, team sports, massage, relaxation sessions or training sessions to help employees manage their emotions etc.

To help you in the scoping phase, we have summarised the HR issues and objectives which might arise in the table below. You can also see the indicators that illustrate the impact of sports and wellness activities on the issues listed.

Encourage team cohesion by cultivating a positive social climate

  • Create opportunities for social interaction
  • Improve communication
  • Make dialogue and discussion easier
  • Promote serendipity
  • Reduce conflict
  • Ease social tension
  • Foster collaboration
  • Increase the number of transversal projects

Promote health

  • Prevent PSRs (psychosocial risk factors) and MSDs (musculoskeletal disorders)
  • Reduce sedentary behaviour
  • Reduce stress and associated costs
  • Promote a good work-life balance
  • Encourage employees to disconnect from work

Optimise employee efficiency

  • Increase individual and collective motivation
  • Encourage employees to use their initiative
  • Boost productivity
  • Encourage creativity and innovation

Attract the right candidates with a differentiated employer brand

  • Attract young talent (millennials) and reduce staff turnover
  • Create an employee advocacy policy
  • Increase the NPS (company recommendation index, according to employees)
  • Retain employees
  • Offer a positive employee experience (employee journey, e.g. onboarding)

Retain talent

  • Create a caring environment
  • Promote flexible working hours
  • Increase the EVP (Employee Value Proposition): improve employee perception of the company
  • Encourage personal development
  • Increase the overall level of satisfaction
  • Encourage autonomy
  • Work on your employee experience

Reduce absenteeism

  • Reduce the rate of absenteeism
  • Boost individual and collective motivation
  • Offer flexibility in working hours to get away from presenteeism
  • Launch innovative/CSR projects (to give employees a sense of meaning)
  • Boost pride in belonging to the company

This step is really essential to firmly root the project in your business. It avoids the famous “shiny new toy syndrome” of sport and wellness initiatives which are often launched too quickly and which fail to meet employee expectations. What’s the next step? All you have to do is identify what you need to do to meet your key objectives and then get the ball rolling! For more information, see our article on Launching a sport and wellness project in 30 days.

Still not convinced? Have a look at our tool find out how much you could improve on turnover and absenteeism.

Is employee wellness important to you? Gymlib has an offer for businesses to help them improve the quality of life at work for their employees.