Fixing the organisation, not just the individual, is vital to improving employee wellbeing, argues Colin Fitzgerald, distribution director at L&G’s Group Protection business, as he highlights the experience of one BCorp employer.
For employee wellbeing to be lived, breathed, sustainable and a driver of people and business growth, there must be a focus on fixing the organisational foundations, not just fixing the individual.
To do this, employers need meaningful data and insights that come directly from those impacted the most – the workforce. Any data gathered must be able to help the employer to quantify the business cost of not getting wellbeing right.
This is something we explored in the latest instalment of our Chief Medical Officer report.
The need for quality data is something that L&G client, car finance company Zuto, understands well. The company has been recognised for its positive culture and employee engagement from being listed in the Sunday Times Best Companies To Work For in 2016 to gaining BCorp accreditation in 2021.
BCorp is a certification that indicates a business is a force for good. In other words, it has met high standards for social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.
With these standards the employer needs to measure its progress. So, how does Zuto get hold of that all-important wellbeing data, what does it do with it, what are the benefits, and how does being a BCorp help with culture and wellbeing.
Zuto, which has 450 employees, defined its purpose and values clearly when it was founded 17 years ago. It focuses on offering a car finance experience with simplicity and integrity.
Mary Beighton, people and culture director at Zuto, explains: “We use storytelling around our purpose to communicate the ‘why’ of Zuto – to show that we’re impacting people’s lives – in terms of: a car represents the second biggest purchase people are going to make; and it’s not just a car, you’ll be taking your kids to school and your elderly parents out on a weekend, for example.
“We work hard to retain our start-up culture as we grow. We’re still in a high-growth phase and we’re a really fast-paced organisation. As the headcount grows, we’ve effectively become a small corporate, in terms of things like process and policy. But we’re conscious that it’s the little things that make a big difference to all our people; collectively known as Zutonites!”
She says the employer does the big stuff because it’s a big company now, adding that they work to maintain a personal experience for employees.
Wellbeing touches every aspect of the people experience, Beighton adds, from their relationship with managers, their job and responsibilities, to pay, reward, recognition and benefits.
“All this influences how people think and feel about Zuto which, in turn, influences how we act. That’s what creates our culture,” she says. “In short, everything we do impacts wellbeing. So having a keen eye on every decision we make is critical.”
Meaningful data
Through its group protection policy with L&G covering at least 100 employees, the car finance firm enjoys complementary access to the data and insight expertise of L&G’s partner Fruitful Insights.
Fruitful helps organisations quantify the cost of impaired wellbeing on productivity, in terms of absence, presenteeism and attrition. It gives them the insights they need to design, monitor and manage wellbeing strategy, by identifying benefit gaps and overlaps, and considering the impact of cultural factors on wellbeing.
Crucially, it surveys an organisation’s people, at all levels, to obtain the data and insights. All respondents receive a personalised and private report, with recommendations on how they can improve their own wellbeing.
Mike Tyler, CEO and co-founder at Fruitful Insights, says the firm surveyed Zuto’s people as part of its Wellbeing Maturity Index (WMI).
“This initial study indicated a WMI score of 82 percent, putting Zuto in the top 10 percent of UK corporate clients and demonstrating their active commitment to employee wellbeing, with high scores against key dimensions, such as strategic intent and strong leadership. We also identified various personal and organisational features that would benefit from improvement and we were able to link these directly to the initiatives that Zuto are deploying.”
Deriving value
The personalised outputs are valuable, says Beighton, because this helps the employer align their planning much more closely to what their workforce needs.
“With Fruitful we get insights very specific to wellbeing. That’s hugely valuable for the strategic objectives we’re working towards. And it’s just gold in terms of understanding how we can further support our people.”
The findings are helping the employer to work on more targeted communications in areas where there’s low awareness around some of the wellbeing benefits they have. It’s also helping spark conversations about how they can adapt what they’re doing to meet the needs of all generations in the workplace.
And the individual employee reports are helping their people look at where and how to look after themselves better. That also helps shape education and signposting priorities in the organisation.
Zuto’s Internal Impact Groups – more commonly known as Employee Relationship or Representative Groups – are heavily involved in all of this action planning. Beighton says the ongoing involvement of their people, beyond surveys, is crucial to employee engagement and helping make improvements happen.
BCorp culture and wellbeing
Zuto went into BCorp in the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and gained accreditation in 2021.
On the back of BCorp, they created their Internal Impact Groups. And, through employee representation and insights, they consolidated all the BCorp areas for assessment into four areas that would be more relatable to their people on a day to day basis: wellbeing; inclusivity; planet; and communities.
“There’s tonnes of overlap between each of those four areas,” says Beighton. “Operationally, having that framework, on which we then base our internal progress around impact work, is really useful. BCorp gives us validation that we’re a business that’s doing the right thing.
“Our people are really proud that they work for a BCorp business. And it has absolutely helped us drive our people strategy and a lot of our decision-making with respect to all our operational goals around growth.
“BCorp is what we want to do in terms of leaving a legacy on the world and creating a business that we can be really proud of. We talk about this a lot; about the collective impact we can have. We work hard to keep it alive, in the boardroom right through to our day to day communications.
“The insights we get from our people represent the most important thing helping us shape all of this.”
