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Is there a link between engagement and employee wellness?

According to HR Magazine: “Employee engagement closely tied to health and wellbeing.” They report: “A mounting body of evidence strongly suggests wellbeing is an essential aspect of engagement, and that companies may be missing a trick if they don’t tackle the two in tandem. CIPD research published in December 2012, Managing for sustainable employee engagement: developing a behavioural framework, concluded that in order to get the best out of people, managers should be adept at preventing stress. It found that those bosses who pass on stress by panicking about deadlines and do not provide advice to or consult with staff tend to erode motivation and undermine employee health and wellbeing.”

The piece quotes Wendy Cartwright, former HR director of the Olympic Delivery Authority and chair of Engage for Success. Cartwright said, “We found that individuals, teams and organisations work most productively for sustained periods where there are high levels of engagement and wellbeing. This is because where there is high engagement but low wellbeing, there is a risk of burn-out over time, and where there is high wellbeing but low engagement, employees may be feeling generally satisfied and well but are unconnected to the organisational purpose. Second, we found that it is possible to create a kind of a virtuous circle in the relationship between employee engagement and wellbeing. Because of this, when organisations really pay attention to the factors that facilitate staff wellbeing, this can help to generate a feeling of connection with the organisation and stronger employee engagement.”

Of course, implementation can always provide a challenge. Harriet Robinson, employee engagement manager at Bupa UK, described the challenges for HR Magazine in that that “'our people work in a range of different environments' across the UK, from call centres to care homes, clinics to offices, and distribution centres to hospitals.”

And does employee engagement matter to the bottom line? Gallup reports: “Gallup researchers studied the differences in performance between engaged and actively disengaged work units and found that those scoring in the top half on employee engagement nearly doubled their odds of success compared with those in the bottom half. Those at the 99th percentile had four times the success rate of those at the first percentile.”