How Honeybee Helps You Build a Strong Workplace Culture

Game rooms, unlimited snacks, and beer on tap certainly sound appealing, but will they give people the full picture of what your company values? Unless you’re in the gaming, snack or beer industry, these perks can be fun but they are not likely to provide real long-term value to your employees or your company.

A strong workplace culture is one that helps employees get a better sense of their company’s mission. It should help you attract the right talent for your team and keep your employees healthy. At Honeybee, we believe the benefits you offer employees should reinforce and strengthen your company’s core identity and values.

Here are the ways you can use Honeybee to help build a strong workplace culture that’ll produce positive long-term outcomes:

Have your employees feel engaged

Nowadays, employees want to feel connected to their company’s business goals and mission. They want their individual work to mean something and have a greater impact. This can be a good thing, because in order for your employees to become your brand advocates and help your business succeed, they need to feel a sense of purpose in the work they do. That’s where company culture comes in – the more defined your culture is, the easier it will be to find the right talent.

“You have to be a place that’s more than a paycheque for people.”

– Rick Fererico, P.F. Chang’s

According to a global study by Deloitte, millennials – who are predicted to make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025 – feel that it is a company’s responsibility to be proactive about making a positive impact on society. But, 62% believe that corporations have no ambition beyond wanting to make more money. That’s why focusing on company culture is so important.

Every founder starts a company to solve a problem. Effectively communicating this across your organization is critical, otherwise your employees may feel disconnected from your mission and what the company stands for. Culture is what makes employees feel like they are part of the team and personally invested in your business’s success.

With a Honeybee Allowance Account, you can offer your employees lifestyle benefits that align with your company’s values, so they can actively engage in what your company stands for.

Say, for example, you’re an AI chatbot company. Your mission is to reduce wasted time and increase productivity for customer service teams so that they can focus on more meaningful tasks. And for this reason, your company values productivity, growth and innovation. How can you demonstrate these values in action to your employees? Offer them an allowance to use towards fitness and wellness activities, or time saver services like home cleaning or meal delivery – these benefits will help employees reduce stress and make the most of their personal time so they can stay productive and happy at work.

Create an inclusive culture

When speaking of today’s workforce, many publications keep focusing on millennials. While they may be helping redefine the way we work, they’re not the sole generation in the workplace. In fact, in 2020, there will be an equal number of millennials as Generation X in the global workforce, with Gen Z cutting close. And, although the percentage of boomers are very few in comparison, they are still very much present in the workplace – in fact, fewer people are retiring by 65, so they may be around longer than you think!

Plus, two people who are the same age, gender or race could be living very different lives. Today’s workforce is more diverse than ever – including differences in the way we think, live and what we value – and employee benefits need to reflect the unique needs of each individual. Research also shows that attracting diverse employees will help you produce 19% more revenue since you’ll be innovating better products that appeal to today’s multicultural society.

Honeybee provides a simple approach to personalized employee benefits. While employers can choose the kind of benefits they want to offer their employees, they can also give their staff the flexibility to use the ones that fit their needs.

For example, many companies will provide their employees with a free gym membership, but that doesn’t take into account that not everyone wants to work out at a gym – some may actually prefer to take yoga or spin classes at a particular studio. With the Honeybee Allowance Account, you can offer your employees a monthly fitness allowance to use at any facility of their choice.

You can also give your employees a monthly allowance to use towards more options like child care, pet care, transportation, continuing education, wellness, financial aid and more. That way, you’re catering to the needs of all your employees, rather then neglecting some of them.

Likewise, with a Honeybee Health Account, employees will be able to use their benefit dollars towards any eligible health and medical expenses. With traditional benefits plans, employees wouldn’t have the same flexibility to choose how to spend their coverage, since there would be a limit on how much they could use for each type of expense. But, with the Health Account, each employee can decide how much of their monthly dollars they want to use towards eligible expenses.

For example, a millennial employee may want to use their coverage solely on massages and therapy sessions, whereas a baby boomer may use it towards chiropractic services or prescription drugs – they each can use their health spending account dollars the way they want.

Employee benefits should be actively helping improve the lives of your staff so that they can be more engaged and happier to be at work. By providing more flexibility, you’re creating a more inclusive workplace culture that accommodates everyone’s individual needs and helps you attract a more diverse workforce as a result.

Support your employees’ development

The impact of digital technology in the workplace is growing quickly. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are changing the way we work, opening up more job opportunities but also replacing human tasks. The need to upgrade skills to keep up with the changing technology has never been so dire and employee are feeling it.

According to a 2018 report by Randstad, 60% of Canadians believe that they’ll need to learn new skills they don’t currently have to keep up with digitalization, and 75% want to future-proof their careers. Employees want the companies they work for to support them in developing the skills necessary – in fact, 79% of Canadians feel that it is their employer’s responsibility to provide training to gain digital skills, but only 40% of employers are doing so.

“I think it’s absolutely imperative for organizations to have a significant structure around a growth philosophy. It’s incredibly important for people at any age to feel like they have growth and movement.”

– Lisa Sterling, Ceridian

It’s important for employers to provide opportunities for their employees to learn the skills they need to succeed in their roles. It’s also a major benefit for the company because when you invest in the development of your employees, you invest in the growth of your business.

By providing your employees with a Honeybee Allowance Account, you can provide funds for them to use towards continuing education. This gives them the freedom to choose the type of classes or courses they want to take to feel confident in their role and in today’s digital age.

Employees also want to be able to take on new responsibilities and do work that interests them, so providing the funds for them to learn new skills to prepare for greater opportunities within your company will help keep them around longer.

Keep your team healthy and happy

If you’re reading this, and especially if you’ve gotten this far, you don’t need us to tell you the importance of keeping your employees healthy and happy. But if you want reassurance that you’re investing in the right place, look at the stats. Workplace stress is the reason one in four Canadians quit their job. When employees experience burnout, their performance declines, they develop a pessimistic view of their tasks, take more sick days, may experience problems in their relationships with coworkers and in general feel like they’ve lost their sense of moral purpose at work.

Providing health and medical benefits, and resources such as an Employee Assistance Program (EAP), which you can offer your employees through Honeybee’s digital platform, are extremely helpful when employees are mentally or physically ill. But, there’s also more you can do to help prevent your employees from getting burned out in the first place and also help them cope during stressful times.

“It is not the amount of stress that employees’ endure that determines their stress level; it is how they are able to cope.”

– Bill Howatt, Morneau Shepell

Honeybee allows you to support a healthy workplace culture that invests in its employees. Funding an Allowance Account is more than just a perk but an invitation for employees to take better care of themselves in and outside of work. For example, when you offer your employees an allowance for any category, like fitness and wellness, they’ll be able to see it in the Honeybee app, whenever and wherever – it acts as a reminder of the options they have to take better care of themselves.

Exercise is not only good for the body but mind as well. Keeping physically active can help relieve stress, lift up your mood, improve memory and help you sleep better. Wellness activities such as meditation can also have mental and physical benefits that help employees relax and handle stress better.

Another category in the Allowance Account that you can fund to help relieve stress is the “Time Savers” category, which include services like grocery delivery and house cleaning, to help employees feel like they’re able to better manage life at work and at home.

When employees feel valued and supported, they’re more likely to perform their best at work. Honeybee can help you build a stronger workplace culture by helping you invest in your employees, and better manage those investments. You can provide coverage and funds to help create a more engaged workplace, provide equal support for all your employees, support their development and prevent them from burning out.

Want to see how Honeybee can help you enhance your workplace culture?

Book a demo today!