In order to ensure that an employee wellbeing programme is created and implemented successfully, certain criteria needs to be met. The programme firstly requires structure to ensure that from conception to roll out, it follows a proper strategy, complete with timeline plans, costings and analytics. The planning for a wellbeing programme requires the delivery of an effective communication plan in order to help employees gain the most out of the programme. Employees need to understand all the benefits that are on offer and overall, the programme needs to have support from organisational leaders in order to give it the highest chances of success.

1. Top-level leadership support -  with a programme as important as employee wellbeing, it is important to gain leadership support from the top-tier of the organisation. Management support helps employees understand the importance of the programme, and leading by example works to influence others and helps inspire. Leaders need to be both knowledgeable and approachable with regard to the wellbeing programme and on hand to answer any questions that employees might have. Good leadership backing encourages better overall participation and uptake.

2. Employee surveying - as soon as there is a clear idea about what wellbeing solutions are available within the set budget, a strategy of surveying and response analysis can be useful. Organisational wide surveying can be a great way to gain feedback from staff on what activities are most popular and what the company can offer throughout the year. To build the best programme within budget, it helps organisations to understand what employee want, need, and what problems and concerns the programme can solve.

3. Trial different services - Approaching providers with an understanding of what is required gives organisations a good start when discussing provision options. The different services should be trialled for a period of time sufficient to give the selected focus team enough knowledge to rate its efficacy and suitability for their company. The results of the effectiveness of the trials then go towards helping the team decide which solutions/providers to choose to work with. The services might include physical health provisions, perks and flexible working, work-based community wellbeing activities such as meditation, yoga, exercises. Services might also include the opportunity for counselling, coaching and 1-1 talking therapies, and often also professional development opportunities such as webinars and learning courses, all designed to help improve your mental health and your understanding.

4. Define your goals - at the same time as trialling the wellbeing solutions, it is a good idea for the wellbeing team to define what the ideal outcome would be. The goals that the wellbeing programme create should include some of the following: to assist in maintaining employee mental health and happiness, a better work-life balance, help with personal issues, to improve staff retention, to reduce absenteeism, to develop better relationships between employees and better team cohesion and to maintain a strong workforce with the capability of producing their best work.

5. Promote the wellbeing programme - with a good communications strategy scheduled for delivery at regular intervals, the wellbeing programme will have a strong presence within the organisation. Good communications will re-emphasise the leadership support and influence as well as to help continually promoting the benefits of the programme. Good communications help to build internal awareness, trust and help maintain employee participation throughout. This then results in a greater uptake and a stress-free workforce who are productive, happy, and know that their employer cares for their wellbeing and mental and physical health.

6. Measure the ongoing impact - Employee wellbeing should be fairly easy to measure directly, Although wellbeing and internal happiness is a subjective experience, the wellbeing solutions that a company introduces should ensure everyone benefits from the opportunity to reduce their stress, enjoy a good work-life balance and to stay mentally and physically healthy. To maintain knowledge of the effectiveness of the solutions, there are ways to measure employee engagement, for example good employee communications software and wellbeing programme uptake data will provide insights into usage and opinion at employee level, providing assurance that every employee was aware of the wellbeing programme on offer and used it when they needed to. The resulting data can then be compared with various other in-house insight data sets such as HR numbers on employee absenteeism, turnover or stress related health issues etc. This can then help you develop an overall picture of the effectiveness of your employee wellbeing programme.