Assessing the effectiveness of the employee wellness programme on administrative staff at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Westville Campus)

Abstract

Employees are said to be the heart of any organisation. It is argued that employers may benefit from employee wellness programmes to enhance productivity, reduce employee absenteeism and lower the costs of insurance and compensation. This particular study aims to assess the effectiveness of the current employee wellness programme in use at the University of KwaZulu- Natal, based on the Holistic Wellness and the Logic models developed by Els and de la Rey (2006), Das, Petruzzello as well as Ryan (2014), respectively. Els and de la Rey (2006) developed the Holistic Wellness Model as a form of reference for the construction of a valid and reliable inventory that assesses the wellness of employees within South African organisations. In order to understand how the existing Employee Wellness Programme has positively impacted on employees, this research study adopted a quantitative research approach utilising selfadministered, closed-ended questionnaires which were completed by 248 administrative staff on the Westville campus. The reliability and validity of the measuring instruments used in the study were tested using factor analysis and Cronbach’s alpha, respectively. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to process the data. The findings of the study indicated that the respondents are aware of the existence of the EWP and perceive it as a necessity. Furthermore, the findings indicated that respondents are not utilising the EWP; hence, they are not benefitting from it. One recommendation arising from the study is that UKZN may benefit from increasing their efforts in promoting the EWP to employees, and increasing the visibility of the programme across the five campuses. Furthermore, the majority of the respondents (64.4%) indicated that rewarding their participation in the EWP would encourage them to participate. Rewards should be used as an initial attraction to motivate individuals to participate in the programme. Arising from the study, it is recommended that the university regularly monitor and evaluate the programme in order to determine the effectiveness of the programme and introduce improvements. The other recommendation of the study is to promote the programme through the provision of rewards for participation.