The Hyde Group launch extensive wellbeing initiative to see 62% decrease in stress levels among employees and 57% awareness of employer's wellbeing commitment

What they needed

Operating in the increasingly competitive environment of social housing, attracting and retaining the best employees whilst still getting value for money is critical to The Hyde Group. Especially when the success of its business is based on the exemplary, 24/7 customer service when managing 50,000 social homes with over 100,000 customers. With employee positivity and customer service inextricably linked, The Hyde Group knew it needed to focus on the wellbeing of its workforce above all else.

The Hyde Group’s team faced three main challenges in increasing employee wellbeing – budget, communication and engagement. With a limited budget, the team was quick to exhaust all of the free wellbeing resources which they could offer in-house, and were out of ideas.

How we helped

To give the wellbeing approach a greater focus, The Hyde Group split its wellbeing offering into four main pillars – LiveWell, CopeWell, WorkWell, and SpendWell. LiveWell focussed on promoting physical health and healthy lifestyle choices through healthy lunches, free fruit, BMI and blood pressure checks, as well as a step challenge and Cycle to Work scheme to keep people active. CopeWell focussed on the support available for employees during difficult times at home or at work. This included an EAP with 24/7 confidential advice on matters from financial and legal to medical and counselling.

WorkWell focusses on giving employees a positive working environment and a sustainable work-life balance by providing clarity on flexible working, sabbaticals, and volunteering days. SpendWell focusses on raising financial education across The Hyde Group, as well as using Reward Gateway’s employee discount and technology net salary deduction benefit, SmartTech™, to make employees’ money go further.

The Hyde Group knew that keeping its wellbeing offering fresh was key to its retention strategy. This included the organisation using innovative Vitamin D health checks linked to the principle that a lack of sunlight could impact performance levels, as well as an annual step challenge with a cash prize for the winning team. On top of this, a free mortgage broker and money advice tool were made available to employees.

What they achieved

Wellbeing is one of the more notoriously difficult offerings to measure the success of, and The Hyde Group chose to measure success based on how employees reported feeling from the initiatives being provided.

To do this, The Hyde Group conducted a wellness survey to assess the impact of the annual step challenge, with the results showing 57% of employees who took part saying they are now more aware of the organisations commitment to health and wellbeing, 62% saying they have seen a decrease in their stress levels either at home or at work, and 48% saying that they have felt an increase in their productivity and concentration.

Compounding this, The Hyde Group’s team saw a reduction in absenteeism across the workforce which – when combined with flexible working also put in place — has had a positive benefit to the overall business performance.