Wellbeing, Technology and The Next Level with Xero

The Next Level is the latest free guide from Xero, one of our amazing partners, and follows on from last year’s The Check In. It provides valuable insights around the many benefits of introducing wellbeing and technology initiatives into your workplace.

The report incorporates data from The New Zealand Institute of Economic Research and concludes that investing in organisational wellbeing initiatives can have as much as a 12:1 return on investment.

‘According to the NZIER, poor mental wellbeing affects decision making and productivity for an average of 13 weeks. Happier, healthier employees are more productive and more profitable than their burned out, unsatisfied teammates.

‘If you want to reset how your business runs and how much money it makes, new economic research shows investing in wellbeing and digitising business processes are key.’ 

Taking wellbeing to the next level

While The Check In offers small business leaders straightforward actions on how to introduce wellbeing into the workplace, The Next Level dives deep into the financial implications of not investing in technology to drive productivity through positive culture and digital tools.

As explained in one of our previous blogs on resilience, achieving a work/life balance is beneficial for leaders and their teams, and the beauty of any wellbeing resilience tool or technique that works for you is that you can use it time and time again.

Employee wellbeing affects vital business outcomes and there are direct correlations between how well an employee performs and their mental health.

Creating a culture of wellbeing for your business is worth its weight in gold, reduces employee stress to create a more relaxed workplace, increases productivity and improves worker engagement, according to The Southern Cross Healthy Futures research study.

Moreover, employees want leaders who have more empathy. A 2018 survey by Dale Carnegie, an American professional training agency, discovered that employees want to work for inspiring leaders who encourage them to improve, and who notice and express appreciation for any such improvement in performance. 88% of employees said they value bosses who listen to them, and 87% of workers said it is important for bosses to show sincere appreciation to their staff.

Webinars for resilience

Regular viewers of our webinar series will know that we have run several episodes which deal with resilience, wellbeing and mental health. In ‘Resilience and Growth In Times Like This with Chris Quin’, Chris shares insights and perspectives on resilient leadership and how to reset for growth.

‘Resilience For A New Normal Bounce, Reimagine And Drive’ sees Dr Sven Hansen facilitate a short webinar on how to sustain and grow your leadership resilience into the recovery phases of the current business climate while ‘Real-time resilience’, with Brad Hook, a partner at the Resilience Institute, outlines the tools to use to improve the lockdown experience, build useful habits, stay optimistic and maintain focus on essential tasks.

Wellbeing in the workplace is still an overlooked and under-reported health issue. ‘Mental illness doesn’t just impact the person. It impacts families, communities and workplaces too. The World Health Organisation predicts mental illness will be the leading cause of disability and absence in the workplace by 2030 if it’s not proactively addressed,’ states business.govt.nz. 

For information on how capability building programmes, workshops and advisory can help your business, click  here.

For more business ownership and leadership advice, check out more of our blogs.

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