Employee Wellbeing Guide
Employee Wellbeing Guide 2026
Welcome to our 2026 employee wellbeing guide and strategy. This guide is designed to give you practical tips to help you build a culture of wellbeing. Whether you are on a budget or looking to spend to improve certain areas, we can guide you to make sure you have got all bases covered.
Recent research suggests a strong link between employee wellbeing and business performance with happier employees leading to higher productivity, better financial outcomes and lower absenteeism. Wellbeing is impacting businesses bottom lines too, with wellbeing leaders significantly outperforming traditional market benchmarks (1). On the flip side the cost of poor wellbeing can be huge, with millions of lost workdays caused due to stress and burnout (2). The evidence is clear, implementing an employee wellbeing strategy can improve business performance.
How to build your strategy
Below gives you a step by step process on how to put your wellbeing strategy together. If you need support with any of the steps please reach out to the team here.
1. Assess current wellbeing needs
Use employee surveys, focus groups, interviews, HR data, demographics and benchmarking to identify top wellbeing risks within your workforce. Do you understand the top wellbeing risks in your organisation? Do dierent groups have dierent needs?
2. Define clear wellbeing objectives
Using your needs analysis from section 1, set wellbeing goals that are measurable and make sure to align these with organisational goals and performance. If you can demonstrate later down the line wellbeing metrics are increasing in line with performance you might have struck gold! Use SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound).
3. Co-create the plan with your employees
Use your wellbeing champions/committee to help shape your plan based on what they are seeing and hearing from colleagues. Be sure to run workshops with clear goals and expectations and ensure to have strong representation from all employee groups. Co-creation builds ownership and increases program adoption.
4. Building your wellbeing action plan
Once you have identified your data and goals, be sure to set timelines, owners of tasks and measurable KPI’s. Do you have the right resources internally or do you need to outsource to partners & vendors? We’d recommend getting leadership buy in of the wellbeing plan who can lead from the front.
5. Communication and launch
The plan is only as good as the Communications. Use multiple channels and fi nd a way to ensure communication throughout the year (virtual, in person). You can promote different aspects of the plan at different times and look for external support with webinars and material (product providers or employee benefit consultancies). Optional: Give the wellbeing strategy a name, brand, or tagline to improve engagement and recognition.
6. Measure, Report and Improve
You will need to build a reporting system so you can track your KPI’s and gather feedback. This allows you to refi ne as the year goes on and if more attention is needed in certain areas you can look to make tweaks. Metrics might include:
- Sickness rates
- Burnout indicators
- Engagement survey results
- Pulse check-ins
- Sta turnover
- Usage of wellbeing programs
We would recommend publishing quick quarterly impact snapshots, even if small. People trust transparency.
Download a copy of the full guide to get additional access to:
- An introduction to the Pillars of Wellbeing (Physical, Mental, Financial, Social & Professional).
- A practical checklist aligned with the Pillars of Wellbeing, suggesting focus areas, things you can implement for free today, and solutions you may want to consider.
- Wellbeing Strategy Template
- Weekly actions for managers
- Additional useful tips
If you need support building your strategy, please contact the team below.
Download Employee Wellbeing Guide 2026
Download our Employee Wellbeing Guide 2026