How Weekly10 improves employee wellbeing using regular feedback

Wellbeing and engagement are often connected. But, even though global engagement has been reaching record highs, so too have employee stress levels. It's not enough to simply wait for things to get better. The only way to fight back against this crisis is to start communicating. So, today, we're exploring the relationship between employee wellbeing and feedback.

Managers and leaders should be doing all they can to stem the tide of poor workplace wellbeing. And that's where Weekly10 comes in...

Updated 2nd July 2023

The 2023 release of Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report found that 44% of employees reported experiencing "a lot" of stress the previous day. According to Gallup, last year was the second in a row where employee stress reached record levels. Even global engagement stats aren't that impressive, even though they're record-breaking, at just 23%.

Almost 6 in 10 employees are quiet quitting. Along with actively disengaged staff, this costs the global economy 9% of its GDP (roughly $8.8 trillion). And, if that wasn't bad enough, more than half of employees are actively or passively seeking new employment. The wellbeing crisis is clear to see, and will only get worse if left unaddressed. 

SHRM research on supporting mental health in the post-pandemic workplace found that sick days due to mental health rose 12% in 2020 – the biggest jump in a single year since records begun.

Why worry about wellbeing?

Before we get into how Weekly10 can help with employee wellbeing and feedback, let's look at the facts of why the former matters. For one thing, poor employee wellbeing costs UK businesses £45 billion a year, and over £1 trillion worldwide.

Financial benefits aren't the only reasons for looking after your people. There are also a host of business benefits for improving employee wellbeing:

• Increased productivity
• Reduced absenteeism
• Decreased presenteeism
• Lowered rates of leaveism
• Increased employee engagement
• Improved staff retention
• Attract top talent
• Improved employee morale
• Reduced organisational stress
• Improved health behaviours of staff

Whether you're looking to gain the positives or avoid the negatives, there's no denying employee wellbeing is an essential part of your HR strategy.

How a Weekly10 check-in helps improve the wellbeing of your people  

Improving employee wellbeing is a multifaceted and complex task, because groups of individual employees can have a wide variety of different needs. And you can't just guess at what those needs might be. That's why there's such a deep relationship between employee wellbeing and feedback.

Your most ambitious employees need career progression and a sense of personal development to feel content. On the other hand, people have lives outside of work, and employees also need the flexibility to deal with things like family situations. But that's hardly the extent of it.

Employees with physical disabilities require you to consider workplace accessibility in its most literal forms. And then there are the issues of stress and poor mental health that can affect literally any employee in your business. There is no quick-fix or sure-fire solution.

Many organisations spend considerable amounts of money on gym memberships, free lunches, surprise presents and social events. For some of these businesses, that may work for some of their people. For most, it works for very few of their people, particularly when it comes to long-term wellbeing improvements.

Weekly10 brings employee feedback and wellbeing together

As we've previously discussed, wellbeing needs to be tackled from the roots up. That's because the roots almost always point to something wrong culturally within an organisation. Typically, that’s an issue with the way leaders (fail to) communicate with their people.

They don't realise that combining employee wellbeing and feedback strategies isn't optional. It's important to remember that HR and leaders aren't always able to put themselves in the shoes of staff members. Rather than guess at what people want, you've got to give them the chance to tell you in their own words.

Weekly10 gives you the tools and the process to fix the way communication works within any business, for all employees. The idea of feedback being one-way and top-down, like a teacher leading a class, is horribly outdated. That's because it blinds management to the very real problems in their workplace culture.

The Weekly10 check-in gives employees a voice. It enables them to share their thoughts, experiences and opinions with their managers and leaders quickly and directly. Most importantly it helps them to do this regularly and in a structured way.

Why does employee feedback and visibility improve wellbeing?

Our tools empower both employees and their managers to build good habits around sharing feedback. The light touch approach of the check-in makes giving and getting feedback super simple.

Feedback is really important, especially when it’s open and honest. Studies show that a good line of communication between managers and employees has a significant impact on wellbeing.

Getting employees into a habit of sharing feedback about their work and experiences helps them to get more comfortable talking about previously off-limits topics. With the stigma around mental health specifically, encouraging your people to share is critical to their and your success.

By getting into the habit of sharing feedback – positive and negative –  employees will ask for help sooner before potential issues escalate.  

Weekly10 is built around giving and getting transparent, honest feedback regularly so your people can grow and thrive. This gives managers early insight about what’s going on around them so that they can respond quickly. This in turn builds trust and helps open up potential wellbeing concerns and topics for more general discussion.