20 Oct Creating a Business Case for Wellbeing

Are you Creating a Business Case for Wellbeing investment? Here are our 6 step for creating as persuasive an argument as possible.

Research, Research, Research

Decision makers want the facts. Go to the meeting prepared. You cannot create a comprehensive, persuasive Business Case for Wellbeing without putting in the leg work. Gather as much relevant data as you can, it is better to have too much than not enough. Ensure that the data can always be related to your key business priorities and strategic drivers.

Give the people what they want. A useful exercise in the research phase of your wellbeing business case creation is gathering feedback from the workforce via surveys. Going in to the meeting with the workforce on your side can offer a very strong argument for investment.

In addition to this, utilise existing industry evidence. Tangible benefits of wellbeing such as productivity, absence rates and performance. Select stats relating to organisations of a similar size, scale and sector.

Business Case for Wellbeing | 1 – Identify the issues

Issues that cannot be ignored. This part of the business case is all about raising the awareness of the issues that the workforce is facing and how this affects business performance.

If you are able to get the decision makers to acknowledge that there is a problem this is a very important step towards convincing them to address the issue by investing in an employee wellbeing initiative.

Often certain job roles experience similar stressors and strains. Take a look at industry relevant stats to help build your case. Alternatively, you could try dipping your toe in the wellbeing water by making a small investment in a ‘Wellbeing Day’ where wellbeing consultants can come on site and run some initial challanges and health tests, as well are raising awareness of wellbeing. This will kick start the process of creating a change in culture along side adding kudos to your argument if you are able to provide initial assessment results backing up you points.

Business Case for Wellbeing | 2 – Define your KPIs

Measuring ROI can be problematic when it comes to wellbeing programmes dependant on your approach. There is a wide range factors that influence performance. However, common sense dictates that happy, healthy employees in a positive working environment perform better than unhappy, unhealthy employees in a negative working environment.

Popular metrics include absenteeism levels, occupational health referrals and staff turnover. It is more difficult to put an exact figure on measures such as productivity, presenteeism and leavism. A key point to consider is that behaviour change does not occur overnight. This is particularly relevant when looking at culture change.

Stick at it. Consistently measuring progress will help you to start forecasting improvements. This will then allow you to set realistic wellbeing initiative goals.

Don’t panic, even if the baseline data is not perfect it is far better than no data at all. Agree your key metrics and gradually you will start to see trends that will help you focus your resources and investment in wellbeing more effectively giving you the greatest possibility of yielding a positive ROI.

Business Case for Wellbeing | 3 – Calculate the current cost

Based on the information gathered during your research phase you now need to attach the associated costs. This can often be the most difficult part of the process but your results can provide very persuasive headline figures to include in your presentation. Figures such as absenteeism rates are much easier to add an associated cost whereas more subjective figures such as performance can be tricky.

By attributing costs to different facets, you will build a more informed view. Whether you like it or not, numbers are the language of decision makers. They are very necessary if your business case is to make the impact you are looking for.

Business Case for Wellbeing | 4 – ROI: Cost vs Benefit

Once you have gathered some of the costs you can now begin to develop a cost vs benefit analysis. This is a vital part of your business case. You will be able to demonstrate return on investment for specific initiatives. For example, you will be able to show that an x% drop in short-term absence through an investment of £y will yield a return on investment of £z.

Business Case for Wellbeing | 5 – Presenting your business case

This is where all your hard work comes together. Focus on the key headlines and how they link back to the improvement of company culture. Keep it engaging, don’t administer death by powerpoint. Different people respond to different content, whether it be visual, written or oral, mix things up and keep it engaging.

Good luck with creating your own Business Case for Wellbeing. You can do it!

If you would like to talk through your wellbeing initiative, occupational health or resilience options simply give us a call on 0333 207 9663 or contact us here. We are always happy to help. You can also find our FAQ’s here.