Ways tech can help wellbeing

From wearables to platforms for holistic health management, tech is helping an increasing number of people and employers to look after their own and their workforce’s wellbeing. Tech to help health and wellbeing is on the rise.

The good and the bad of tech in homeworking

Now that working from home has become commonplace for many people, with some entire organisations now operating from home, the reliance on tech has grown. Tech has enabled access to everything – conferences, calendars, messages and servers, even a view of your spare bedroom.

There are obvious advantages that tech and increased accessibility brings to working from home, but there is a downside. With increased access to work, it can feel for some, as if it never really goes away. The potential for stress connected caused by workload and pressure to attend conferences and calls increases.

Health and wellbeing are personal

What works for one person may not work for another. But tech is so flexible that the options are there for individuals and employers.

For example, one person may benefit from wearables that monitor the quality of their sleep, and meditation apps to help them to relax and get that much-needed ‘switch off’. Another person may see their physical fitness as key to their wellbeing; they may need a schedule that allows them to go on a mid-afternoon run and they may use wearables to track their cardio fitness.

Integrated health platforms for employers

Tech has enabled the use of various integrated health platforms by employers, to monitor employees’ happiness and stress levels. The platforms are used to signpost employees to help, and sends personalised reminders to prompt them to take care of themselves. Are you hydrated? Have you had your daily exercise today? Do you need a break?

As well as helping to embed a caring approach within an organisation towards its employees, the practical reminders for those who may feel remote and in danger of suffering from a lack of engagement can offer real support.

Communication and confidentiality

Particularly cloud technology has increased an employee’s ability to speak to whoever they need to and by whatever means they prefer. If it makes an employee uncomfortable to speak face to face to their employee about a health issue, they don’t have to; they can conduct an audio call only, or use instant messaging.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, if an individual prefers to communicate face-to-face, with colleagues, or their manager, then that option is easily available. Plus, employers are seeing the value of virtual social time, and are encouraging face-to-face contact between employees to chat about non-work issues, acknowledging the personal interaction that some members of their team may miss.

Strategic insight

Tech can go further in helping and supporting employers to aid employees’ health and wellbeing. Employee-generated data would be necessary, and there would be issues around trust and consent in order for this to work, but there are developments in this area.

The future could see an approach to using strategic data of health and sickness records, as well as individual productivity and medical condition information to deliver a truly personalised approach to employees through a work platform. This would enable an early intervention approach to health and wellbeing, help to inform trends and put necessary measures in place, for example, a reminder to have a flu jab at a certain time of the year, or take winter vitamins. And perhaps increase breaks and employee contact before a scheduled holiday.

Tech is definitely moving in the direction of more strategic data to inform approaches to monitor and assist employee wellbeing. The question is whether this will be seen as a further merging of the home and workplace, as employers take a step to help with what some individuals may see as highly personal.