Nurturing a culture of health and wellness will result in higher productivity from your employees and will also enable you to attract and retain the best talent.

The coronavirus pandemic has been the catalyst for a lot of discussions around the need for tech enablement and digital transformation.

Companies have had to be agile and be able to equip their workforce to transition from a traditional working model to a distributed work environment where most people are working from home.

The initial focus when transitioning to work from home was on business continuity and how to maintain productivity and create an environment that fostered collaboration.

At first productivity soared as people no longer had to commute and “disconnecting” from work became harder.

“People are living at work,” says Abby Levine, a principal in Deloitte’s real estate group. “That has a physical, emotional, and mental impact.”

Nearly ten months after work from home became the new norm, employee productivity has taken a nosedive.

2020 has highlighted the importance of employee health and wellbeing; working in a distributed virtual world has caused anxiety, stress and loneliness for many people resulting in a loss of connectivity to their company, colleagues, and customers.

Employee wellness is not just a qualitative attribute – it is directly tied to measurable, quantitative metrics.

According to survey results from the nonprofit Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), more than 90% of business leaders say that promoting wellness can affect employee productivity and performance.

The Centers for Disease Foundation, reports that worker illness and injuries cost U.S. employers $225.8 billion annually, or $1,685 per employee. In addition, $1 trillion is lost due to unaddressed employee chronic disease each year, according to the Milken Institute.

A study by the University of Louisville found that every dollar invested in a wellness program generated $7 in healthcare savings.

Having a robust employee wellness program is a strong attractor for Millennial and Gen Z employees who value health and wellness outside of traditional healthcare benefits. Corporate wellness programs are nearly an $8 billion industry in the United States, globally, it’s a $40 billion industry.

Ariana Huffington is the founder of Thrive Global, a media and technology company to support individuals struggling with burnout and stress.

The Thrive Global behavior change solution platform is backed by science to drive sustainable behavior change that can be tracked using their pre- and post-behavior change assessments.

Thrive Global has helped companies such as Walmart, Accenture, and Salesforce enable their employees to build healthy habits through inspirational storytelling and “micro steps” to help them navigate this particularly challenging time.

Micro steps are small, incremental, science-backed actions we can take that will have both immediate and long-lasting benefits to the way we live our lives.

74% of the Thrive Global program participants say they are now more likely to stay at the company and there is an estimated $20M saved due to reduction in employee turnover.

Nurturing a culture of health and wellness will result in higher productivity from your employees and will also enable you to attract and retain the best talent.

Boards would be well served to understand how stress, anxiety, and wellness are impacting their organizations productivity.

Read original article