Tailored wellness programs- Employee Personalization

 

Swiggy, an online food ordering and delivery company based in Bangalore, India has embraced personalization in its holistic wellness programs. The launch of a curated program during the pandemic in 2020 called “Build around You” aimed to support the holistic wellbeing of employees and their loved ones across four essential pillars: physical, mental, financial planners and legal experts.

Swiggy understands that wellbeing is multidimensional and is closely related to engagement, productivity, and retention by personalising support, based on physical, mental, financial, and legal wellbeing pillars. The studies indicate that holistic wellness programs improve job satisfaction and minimize occupational stress (Grawitch et al., 2006). This is in line with the international trends in HRM where organisations are increasingly adopting a wellbeing approach that is holistic in nature to help organisations have a healthier and more resilient workforce (Cooper and Cartwright, 1994).

 

In Sri Lanka, there are high disparities between the level of employee welfare in the public and the private sector. In most cases, the government sector has all-inclusive welfare benefits, such as pension, medical coverage, leave benefits, transfer programs, and high job security, which are possible basically because the policies are institutionalised and affected by the unions (Herath, 2015). Nevertheless, coverage is wide, but there is little innovation in the wellness sector, and only a number of personalised or modern wellbeing services at most basic statutory offerings.

 

The business community on the other hand is more dynamic and at the same time less predictable. Bigger companies, particularly apparel, IT and banking, are putting more money in wellness programme including counselling, fitness centres and psychological support. However there are still numerous smaller companies which only offer statutory benefits because of cost reasons or because they are not yet HR mature (Wickramasinghe and Jayabandu, 2007). Therefore, in the case of the welfare in the private sector, it may be more progressive and divergent than the welfare in the state sector.

 

The current HR practices in Sirio Ltd capture some of the components of Swiggy wellbeing framework. Having a counsellor and employee relations officers promote psychological and emotional health which is necessary as stress on employees increases in the apparel industry. The gymnasium also helps in the promotion of physical health. Nevertheless, financial planning services, which are one of the pillars of Swiggy, are costly and have not been fully exploited. Unless there is an organized approach to financial literacy, the employees might still be struggling with debt management, budgeting, and long-term savings issues.

 

In sum, although the Sri Lankan private sector (such as Sirio Ltd) has good momentum in the direction of wellbeing of employees in a holistic view, the adoption of individualised and affordable services is a strategic issue. Organisations can develop support systems gradually by considering the collaboration with financial advisors, digital health platforms, or government-sponsored wellness programs. This would allow companies to develop a more balanced, fair, sustainable wellbeing system that reflects the international best practices but is sensitive to the local reality.

References

Cooper, C.L. & Cartwright, S. (1994) ‘Healthy mind; healthy organization—A proactive approach to occupational stress’, Human Relations, 47(4), pp. 455–471.

Grawitch, M.J., Gottschalk, M. & Munz, D.C. (2006) ‘The path to a healthy workplace: A critical review linking healthy workplace practices, employee well-being, and organizational improvements’, Consulting Psychology Journal, 58(3), pp. 129–147.

Herath, T. (2015) ‘Public sector HRM in Sri Lanka: Issues and challenges’, Sri Lanka Journal of Human Resource Management, 5(1), pp. 1–12.

Wickramasinghe, V. & Jayabandu, S. (2007) ‘Towards a model of HRM in South Asian context: A study of Sri Lankan manufacturing firms’, International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18(10), pp. 1807–1823.