Employee Wellness and Counseling Services

One of the critical roles of a human resource manager is to design and manage workplace well-being programs. According to Berman et al. (2010), counselling and employee wellness services aim to promote behaviours conducive to good health and fitness and to alter unhealthy lifestyles and personal habits. Therefore, by adopting the initiatives, companies hope to save on long-term sickness costs by averting ailment issues or lowering their occurrence among workers. However, it becomes an HR problem when an organization fails to consider the possible potential legal concerns carefully, levels of employees participation, advantages, and cost; it is sometimes addressed incorrectly in the workplace; consequently, as an HR professional, it is essential to determine how the issue could be handled differently.

Employee Wellness Benefits

As people spend much of their time at work, understanding how to promote their well-being in an organization can considerably contribute to fostering their health in society. In this regard, employee wellness and counselling services are designed to improve and maintain their health before problems arise. Nonetheless, as businesses seek to make a profit, some of them often address the HR issue in question incorrectly. Some of the mistakes they make include failing to do the following: setting the objectives of the programs, deciding the level of involvement of the organization, creating a budget, writing and communicating the wellness policy, and managing the initiative. Consequently, they fail to meet their desires to control healthcare costs, decrease absenteeism, and improve productivity (Flynn et al., 2015).

Counselling Services and Communication Benefits

Conversely, as an HR professional, it is crucial to determine the various steps that could be taken to address the problem differently. One of the ways of achieving this is to use communication to establish a social culture where being healthy is valued. It is imperative to provide the workers with increased incentives for meeting specific health status targets or participating in a wellness program. Similarly, there is a need to consider compliance requirements and legal issues when handling the concern of employee wellness and counselling services. The aim herein is to ensure that the employees demonstrate more satisfaction with their job as well as positive attitudes towards it; consequently, they will show lower absenteeism and stress levels, which, in turn, will lead to improved workforce motivation and productivity (McCarthy et al., 2011).

Furthermore, addressing the issue more effectively requires increasing employee participation and engagement to attain the program objective. To this end, the best practices include using best-in-class incentive campaigns to improve motivation, applying a simple promotional campaign to broaden the reach, and utilizing smart communications to identify prospects. The firm should also increase employee engagement by encouraging their active commitment and involvement to personal wellness and the organization’s well-being and counselling program. The rate of participation of the workers is one of the methods for evaluating the effectiveness of the mentioned initiative (Flynn et al., 2015).

In summary, wellness and counselling programs are usually successful investments, providing employers with returns and reducing healthcare costs. Nonetheless, it becomes an HR problem when addressed incorrectly, its costs outweigh the benefits, and the initiatives are not designed efficiently. Consequently, it may lead to unhealthy behaviours, such as harmful weight loss practices. For this reason, an HR professional needs to handle the issue appropriately through different channels, including health fairs and wellness publications, to provide workers with the tools to live healthily.

References

Berman, E. M., Bowman, J. S., & West, J. P. (2010). Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes, processes, and problems. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

Flynn, W. J., Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H., & Valentine, S. R. (2015). Healthcare human resource management. Boston, MA: Nelson Education.

McCarthy, G., Almeida, S. & Ahrens, J. (2011). Understanding employee well-being practices in Australian organizations. International Journal of Health, Wellness & Society, 1(1), 181-198.