APAC businesses prioritise overall health but disregard emotional wellbeing

In APAC, 85% of firms already have a wellbeing strategy, and 77% have integrated it into their entire business and personnel strategy, according to the 2022-2023 Global Wellbeing Survey conducted by the international professional services firm Aon.

The APAC area, however, came in second last among the other regions in terms of the proportion of employers who incorporate emotional wellbeing into their company’s strategy (52%).

The majority of participants also indicated that they had linked to or integrated their wellbeing strategy with other aspects of the business, including health and safety (90%) and total rewards (83%) as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (90%) and environmental, social, and governance (87%) factors.

There is still much work to be done even though 88% of organisations in APAC have at least one wellbeing project in place. This is because there is a disconnect between what is provided and the problems that need to be solved.

Organisations should refrain from introducing sporadic individual well-being initiatives that have no connection to a more comprehensive business plan, according to Alan Oates, head of advice and speciality for Health Solutions, APAC at Aon.

“Organisations will make better decisions to improve wellbeing and overall workforce resilience by using data and analytics to identify employee needs and align interventions with those needs.”

The top two employee wellbeing challenges in APAC are mental health and burnout/languishing. Languishing is the feeling of being trapped and not moving forwards, whereas burnout is characterised as unmanaged work-related stress.

Only 18 percent of businesses include this subject in their emotional wellbeing initiatives, and only 24 percent train their managers on managing burnout, despite the fact that burnout is the second-most frequently cited employee wellbeing issue.

Well-being and a sustainable work environment are related, and this relationship can affect business performance. The better an employer performs in the areas that make up a sustainable working life, the higher its ratings for overall employee wellbeing and the performance of wellness initiatives.

According to the poll, increasing employee wellness variables can improve business performance by at least 11% and as much as 55%.