Employee well-being covers five connected areas: physical health and safety, financial wellness, mental and psychological health, emotional and social support, and sense of purpose.
Treating mental health as a standalone program tends to fail, because weakness in any one of the other four areas drags mental health down with it.
Mental wellness became the workplace watchword the moment the COVID-19 pandemic sent people home. Organisations across the Philippines responded quickly. They expanded wellness benefits, stood up listening platforms, built regular check-ins into the week, and trained managers to lead with empathy and spot early warning signs.
That work mattered. It was also incomplete.
At the ASEAN Future of Work Conference panel on Fostering Inclusive Workplaces that Support Mental Well-being and Work-Life Harmony, Evelyn Kwek, Managing Director of Great Place To Work® ASEAN and ANZ, made the case plainly: a mental wellness strategy that ignores everything else around it will not hold.
People experience well-being as one thing, not five separate line items on a benefits summary. Mental health, financial security, social support, meaningful connection, and a sense of purpose all feed the same reservoir. Drain one and the level drops everywhere.
The pillar most companies forget
Most organizations already have well-being pillars written down somewhere. The usual set: physical health and safety, financial wellness, mental health, emotional and social support.
Great Place To Work®’s ongoing research points to a fifth. Sense of purpose. Does an employee believe their work makes a difference? Does the job carry special meaning, or is it just a job? The answer shapes how proud people feel about what they do, and pride shapes satisfaction, retention, and how people rate their own well-being.
The five pillars in practice
The examples below come from the Philippines Insights Report 2021, drawn from Philippines Best Workplaces™ and Great Place To Work-Certified™ companies.
1. Physical health and safety
DHL Express sat in the eye of the storm. As a global leader in transportation and express logistics with a largely frontline workforce, it had few remote-work options for most of its people.
The company went past what the law required. Frontline staff received masks, shields, gloves, coverall suits, safety spectacles, alcohol gels, and multivitamins. Non-frontline staff worked from home with full support and flexibility. For those who still had to come in, DHL arranged nearby accommodation and transport for staff living far from the office, and provided meals to everyone on site while food establishments were shut.
Atlassian noticed the obvious problem with lockdown life: nobody was moving. Its answer was the Walk This Way challenge, with teams of four competing to log the most steps.
It worked well enough to run again in October, this time with Atlassian planting one tree for every 300 steps an employee took. To keep it open to people with disabilities and different fitness levels, the company built a walking conversion chart that translated archery, biking, yoga, and fishing into steps per minute.
2. Financial wellness
S&P Global worked through the money worries methodically. New hires whose start dates slipped because of the pandemic were protected from the financial hit. Performance Improvement Plans and Coaching Plans were extended so employees and managers had room to adapt. The Performance Appraisal system was adjusted for the circumstances, bonuses were paid in the first half of 2020 as extra support for all employees, and generous allowances covered home office equipment.
Synchrony backed its work-from-home staff with monthly communication stipends and extended deadlines for benefit reimbursements. The monthly wellness program grew to include online yoga and gym classes, plus a one-time wellness payment for isopropyl rubbing alcohol, vitamins, masks, and other health provisions.
Then came the part people remember: a special one-time CEO monetary award paid to every single employee, rank and file through to senior management, alongside an advance on a prorated portion of their 13th month pay.
3. Mental and psychological wellness
Canva Philippines put real resources behind mental health rather than a poster campaign. Nineteen members of its People Team were certified as mental health first responders. Fitness and well-being classes moved online, along with a run of other engagement activities.
PSG Philippines used every channel available for clear, transparent, two-way communication, and kept spirits up with activities alongside it. Its ‘WeTalk’ seminar series, launched in 2019, was retooled with topics matched to what employees needed at the time: ‘Yoga for Beginners’, ‘Eating Right’, and ‘Mental Health’.
Western Union AROC added flu vaccination for staff and their families, and gave every employee a free one-year Headspace subscription. Online workout sessions were gamified with rewards, which lifted participation.
4. Emotional and social support
DHL Express made team spirit a stated priority and filled the calendar to match: DHL’s Got Heart Digital Celebration, #DoubleTap4Pride, DHL4HER, and Virtual Appreciation Week, among others. It also fast-tracked ‘Smartr’, a one-stop employee communication and social app, and rewarded top users to drive adoption and camaraderie.
Ingram Micro Philippines ran a comprehensive event calendar through 2020: Pride Celebrations, a ‘Fun-at-Home’ series, the ‘A Step into Greatness’ virtual celebration, a virtual Halloween Fright Fest featuring Filipino folklore and mythological creatures, and a two-week Rise Up Holiday Fest that finished with a Star Awards Night, a Lip Sync Battle, and raffle prizes.
5. Sense of purpose
PayPal Philippines extended its care past the employee roster, funding grants to nine NGOs and partnering with community programs on food and tech support.
Its most distinctive initiative was #PayPalitForward. Every employee could nominate up to five people who had inspired them during the pandemic. Each nominee received USD $50 and a personal message from the employee who named them.
Bayanihan spirit, collectively. Eight Great Place To Work-Certified companies pooled resources to support the Yellow Boat of Hope Foundation and its COVID-19 response program, the ‘Educational Hub’ or ‘E-hub’:
- Sutherland
- DHL Express Philippines
- Synchrony Global Services
- Ingram Micro
- PSG Global Solutions
- White & Case
- Canva Philippines
- Sun Life Asia Service Centre-Philippines
The three e-hubs were built to give more than 200 Filipino students in remote areas access to online education, and to equip more than 30 teachers for a new way of teaching.
Great Place To Work®’s brand promise is to build a better world by helping every organization become a great place to work For All™. Supporting this initiative was a way to make quality education available For All™, particularly for Filipino children, as the country shifted to remote learning.
What this means for well-being strategy
The pandemic pushed mental wellness up the agenda. What organisations learned since is that well-being in totality decides who they attract, who stays, and who does their best work.
Design well-being policies, programs, and practices around the whole person, and revisit them as what employees need keeps shifting.
