A Healthy Organisation is the Organisation Caring for the So-called Employee Well-being
To ensure the employee well-being, directly translating into their effectiveness, and thus into the performance of the company, is one of the most important tasks of today that employers face. Only if the company strategy considering the life-work balance is adequately aligned, it will allow the management to win employees with adequate qualifications and experience.
It is important to talk about the employee well-being in terms of the challenges faced by the labour market along with the demographic crisis. Employees pay attention to maintaining the life-work balance and the right conditions allowing them to feel fulfilled. The feeling of well-being is particularly influenced by: employee rewards, extra recognition for professional successes which manifests not only in a form of financial gratification, but extends to diversified non-salary benefits linked with private life.
Such life and work attitude results in the fact that it is hardly surprising that nowadays, while recruiting new employees, the non-salary benefits are one of the most crucial elements of the negotiations. It is worth noticing that some of them are already perceived as a market standard.
Healthy Organisation, Better Performance
According to the McKinsey OHI research, healthy organisations achieve better results. Health is also important to the employees. According to the global Mercer 14 research, as much as 61% of employees consider health as their biggest challenge and priority for the future.
Therefore, caring for employee well-being is becoming one of the foundations of the long-term HR management. If we look at the research results, run amongst the Polish employees, it turns out that the major problem is the inaccurate BMI and the obesity-related diseases. More than half of the respondent employees exceeded the BMI. Employers who are aware of this, decide to improve eating habits of their employees. An increasing number of employers begin to realise that the benefits such as massage sessions offered at the workplace or, for example, yoga sessions, are far from sufficient and provide solely short-term effects. Actually, the effects should be long-term and should generate long-term health-promoting effects.
We will not reach the goal by providing employees solely with standard benefits, i.e. health-care or sports cards, as employees do not have the time to use them and they forget that they have ever gotten them from the employer. Thus, the cards cannot influence the employer’s competitiveness and the company’s employer branding. Either way, not to the same extent as a few years earlier. Nowadays, it is required to reach out for a much wider spectrum of measures positively influencing the well-being, employee health condition and improving the purchasing force, because, as we know, Poland features a very low level of the purchasing power.
A Sound Mind in a Sound Body
The most important issue which should be taken into account while creating motivation programs within a company is proper nutrition and funding meals for the employees. It is crucial both in view of good health condition (the BMI, already referred to), but also employee well-being and the improvement of their effectiveness. According to Human Power research, the issues linked with eating are not a priority to an average employee or manager. And this is a mistake. The HERO research shows that there is a close correlation between nutrition and employee productivity. Effectiveness of the employees who regularly eat healthy meals is growing by 25% and their absence decreases by 27%.
The conclusion seems to be simple: meals funding is a splendid idea for a motivation program for the entire Team. It will be also appreciated by the employees. The HBR and Edenred research shows that 82% of the employees is of the opinion that non-salary benefits improve the quality of the corporate life. In turn, as the IPSOS research shows, 71% of the respondents claimed that the lunch cards may meet, to a large or an average extent, their expectations regarding the bonus awarded by their boss. In turn, 75% of the respondent employees admitted that lunch cards represent their favourite benefit.
If we add to this rich statistic the fact that meals and eating them in company incredibly influence good working environment within the organisation, and thus impact the well-being and satisfaction of the employees, the choice of a motivational program is obvious. It should be based on the Edenred lunch cards.
Measurable Budget Benefits
Lunch (meal) cards represent an interesting solution. The employer may freely structure its motivational programs using the lunch cards, granting such benefit to all its employees or only the chosen ones. They may be topped up on a regular basis as well as at any convenient time, thus making it easy to align the employee rewarding and motivating policy with your preferences.
The main advantage of the Edenred lunch cards provided to the employees is the fact that the funds not used in a given month do not expire, but they can be used in subsequent months. This an advantage which is not offered by any other form of funding meals such as subscription cards or vouchers. Moreover, the card is safe. If lost, the funds are still available. The card may be easily blocked online or via the mobile application.
Besides the elements linked to employee motivation and caring for their health, the budget factor is also important. As this type of benefits generates measurable financial advantage. This is a solution available to each and every company, as it does not require establishing the company social fund. It is also not necessary to invest in the social infrastructure. The expenses to top up the card represent an employer’s tax-deductible expense, thus, decreasing the amount of the tax paid by the company. The funds transferred to the card are VAT exempted. Moreover, the benefit enjoys ZUS exemption up to PLN 190 monthly per an employee (§2 (1) (11) of the Regulation of the Minister of Labour and Social Policy of 18th December 1998). And this means savings of PLN 462 annually per one employee.
