If 2022 was the year of the pay rise; 2023 will be the year for supporting employee well-being. What is the thinking emerging?

If 2022 was the year of the pay rise, 2023 may be the year of employee benefits that embrace an approach to supporting employee wellbeing. Many companies understand, and are concerned about the challenges facing many employees. The focus is on employee morale, culture, retention and recruitment in what has been an age of uncertainty.

A recent analysis of Google data of the world’s biggest economies found that trips to workplaces were still well below their levels before the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020. Most companies still report average density levels to be around the 65% mark and it is expected to peak at 70% of 2019 levels. Many are understandably now arguing that there is little point benchmarking against 2019 but now creating new strategies for the 2023 challenges.

There is a shift that has already started to happen. It is reported that a fifth of British businesses are giving staff additional benefits, such as travel subsidies, shopping vouchers and free parking to help with the cost of living. EP has started working with an Australian start-up (Upstreet), entering the UK, which gives shares as you shop. It is a new approach to loyalty schemes.

The greatest concern is that there is so much research emerging which suggests that close to 25% of the adult workforce have little to no savings and of course this leads to around 20% who expect to look for new jobs in 2023 which just serves to continue the destructive cycle.

Historically, the greatest strategies for retaining talent has been strong cultures, and employee benefits. The old Forte Empire excelled in their benefits schemes which many old employees still refer to. Over the years, these have declined but now is maybe the time to revisit what worked in past difficult times to provide solutions?

If one looks back at past research, the leading factors in retention lay in career development schemes (an average 38%), work cultures (30%) and benefits schemes (29%). Pay and salary used to average out as fourth at (27%).

Of course, pay is important but employees do also care about where and how they work and this is the battleground for 2023.

The counter argument is that over the last twenty years there have been more recognition and awards for great places to work than ever but this opens another topic of debate as the hard reality is that overall budgets for L&D have halved, the value of company pensions have declined, work cultures had a low point even before the pandemic and there is good reason as to why it has been hard to encourage many back to the workplace. The debate is not about how the quirky pieces which have emerged in offices such as putting greens, table tennis tables, slides, bars, etc but about how does an employee feel valued and supported?

It is estimated that over 60% of employees are concerned about their financial stability in this moment. There is no bigger issue than the cost of living crisis facing employees and post Christmas, it will be felt more than ever.