Why Companies Should Invest in Employee Wellness Efforts
- Julia Wagner
- Dec 4, 2022
- 3 min read
There are many aspects of an organization that play a role in a consumer's experience, whether they are shopping online or in person, hearing about it through a friend or family member, coming across an advertisement, landing on their social media page or applying for an employment opportunity. The feelings that consumers experience about a brand are ultimately determined by their interactions with the brand and how they are approached.
An integral part of public relations is managing this relationship between a brand and its consumers and working to generate positive brand recognition. Given this, it is important that employees feel positively about their working conditions, their work culture, the company mission and the overall role they are fulfilling. Working is a huge part of societal culture and people discuss their jobs in almost every social setting, so an employee having a positive work experience means an employee generating positive messaging about their company.
About one third of the average person’s life is spent working, so ensuring fair, safe and respectful working conditions should be a priority of business owners. As the job market has become much larger in terms of the variety of job opportunities, potential employees have become more accustomed to researching positions, job reviews, company culture and other aspects of work life that are important to them. In order to be competitive, brands need to do more than just raise wages.
Amazon’s Backlash
Amazon is a major company experiencing the backlash and negative press of failing to prioritize employee wellness. Amazon is notorious for terrible warehouse working conditions, unethical practices and even deaths of employees while working. Thousands of articles have been written about it, TikTok videos exposing working conditions are constantly going viral and most consumers are aware of it by now.
Many make the argument that Amazon still has 310 million customers, so they are not being negatively affected by this bad press. Amazon provides an incredibly useful and seemingly necessary service to people around the world who enjoy its convenience, price and variety. For many, the benefits are too great to give up despite its ethical considerations.
However, it is important to take customer emotions and associations into consideration. Ideally, a brand will leave people feeling positive after using their service or buying their product because this generates brand loyalty through feeling good about supporting a brand’s mission. But in the case of Amazon, customers are using the platform because of how much it benefits their day to day shopping experience, but they are also feeling guilty in the process for supporting a company with unethical practices.
Corporate Social Responsibility
This also affects corporate social responsibility, which is talked about here. Corporate social responsibility is when an organization takes accountability for itself and the public, such as through environmental initiatives or supporting a charitable cause.
Amazon has done this in the past, such as hosting a series of Girls Who Code events to expose more girls to coding. Although this is a great cause, Amazon faced backlash because of their efforts to generate positivity externally and in front of the press, while their own employees were suffering. Before an organization can do external CSR, they need to ensure that their internal publics have their needs met.
Amazon is just one example of how prioritizing employee wellness from the start is beneficial for organizations in the long-run. Choosing to ignore the major issue led to bad press and consumers feeling negatively about supporting the company.
Organizations should take into consideration that in today’s world, it only takes one person and their phone to create a massive following on an issue. Prioritizing employee wellness is crucial to avoiding being on the receiving end of massive backlash.
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