The Impact of Workplace Wellbeing on Talent Retention

There is a war waging at present and it is a battle for talent. Management consultants, recruitment professionals, HR and researchers all generally agree on what organisations need to do to retain people and keep them engaged. According to recent data published by McKinsey & Co*, in a study of 12 factors which influence employees’ satisfaction, performance and well-being, meaningful work, workplace flexibility (remote & hybrid and other flexibility), career development, inclusion and support for wellbeing ranked in the top 7 following adequate compensation. In a cost-of-living crisis, it is no surprise that adequate compensation ranks highly. (In 2021, it was important but not top of the list for most employees).

The most recent CIPD Health and wellbeing at work survey 2023 reported that around a third of employers found that health and well-being activities resulted in improved employee morale and engagement and a healthier and more inclusive culture.

If you are unsure of how well or otherwise your organisation is doing in relation to these key well-being influencing factors, OMhAS can help you. Our mental wellbeing assessment tool will allow you to assess what you are getting right and what might be improved in relation to workplace mental health. To retain your top talent, it is crucial that you evaluate these factors and work on getting them right as otherwise, your ability to retain top talent is at risk.

In the same publication. McKinsey report that on average, only 11 percent of an organisation’s workforce will be thriving and fully engaged. This group represents the top talent of the organisation. Mc Kinsey recommends that leaders should focus on enabling the top talent to spread their positive influence to others in the workforce by sharing skills, knowledge and optimal behaviours. This makes sense and appeals on many levels but assessing the experience of the other 89% of your workforce in relation to key wellbeing factors, is crucial too. Some small changes to management and culture could push some of that 89% into the “thriving and engaged” category.

Building the skills of your people managers to engage with the factors which have most influence on wellbeing and making other simple but powerful changes to how your organisation deals with mental health and well-being, will pay dividends in creating more top talent and retaining the talent you have currently. Indeed, the main challenge for organisations has been shown to be the lack of line manager skills and confidence to support wellbeing. Only three in 10 organisations were found to be providing guidance and training for line managers on how to support those in their teams.** The OMhAS products and consultancy services are designed to help you achieve exactly that.

Building good workplace culture on mental health is crucial. Support for mental health is high on the agenda of those entering the workplace and organisations will find it difficult to attract top talent without have good systems in place to promote good health as well as support systems. Bear in mind also, that those in the top talent group can also be most at risk of burnout so providing information and support on staying well, working healthily and reducing the risk of burnout is something every organisation needs to focus on. In our next post, we will look specifically at burnout and will consider important steps organisations can take to limit the incidence of burnout within its people.

Jennifer Nicol, Director

OMhAS Ltd

*”Some employees are destroying value. Others are building it. Do you know the difference?” De Smet, Magayar-Baldocchi, Reich and Schaninger. 11 September 2023.

** CIPD Health and wellbeing at work survey 2023 p10

Helping organisations to help people thrive at work

For more information contact one of our Directors:

Jennifer@OMhAS.co.uk and Joanna@OMhAS.co.uk

e / mental health issues in the workplace positively.