I appreciate that getting exec buy-in and sign-off is a standard requirement when spending any kind of resource.
Please do not confuse my issue with getting sign-off for funding employee wellbeing interventions, and the process of actually measuring the success of interventions. Measurement is an essentail part of the whole process and highlighting KPI’s to work towards will only reinforce the success of an employee wellbeing program and therfore obtain funding from the next budget.
So how can you go about getting sign-off in the first place?
Highlighting costly issues to do with employee engagement and wellness within your company is good starting point. Do not overlook highlighting these problems within your specific industry sector either. Why not pitch it as "Our industry is reknowned for a high rate of long-term stress absense, let’s improve that internally and get a head-start on our competitors?"
By highlighting areas such as poor productivity; long term absense; short term absence; presenteeism; large staff turn-over; staff disengagment, this gives you your starting point.
Calculating the return on investment in interventions to improve these numbers is the difficult part.
However, this is my point: By senior level management requesting an ROI forecast in pounds, shillings, and pence, they are ignoring the whole aspect of common sense: Treat and acknowledge your staff more and they will work harder for you. By ignoring this, management will be losing ground against competitiors who choose to be more proactive.
Nobody has to financially justify to us why we should run a list of errands when out in the car in one trip, instead of coming home in between each task and then going out again. It just makes sense.
For me, treating your employees well is that simple.
David Wigley
www.twitter.com/wellbeingsport
www.wellbeingsport.com
