Business in the Community today launches its 2014 Workwell benchmark to measure how companies are publically reporting employee engagement and wellbeing. The process will be open to all companies, and builds on progress made as part of the 2013 pilot benchmark of FTSE 100 companies which highlighted the need for increased transparency of employee engagement and wellbeing practices.

Currently, only one third of UK employees are actively engaged in their work, and levels of employee stress and anxiety are rising. This contradicts clear evidence that workplaces with good levels of wellbeing have higher productivity, greater employee retention and improved customer satisfaction.

Stephen Howard, Business in the Community’s chief executive, said: “We hope the 2014 benchmark, which we encourage all responsible companies to take part in, will begin to show improvements in the way employers manage their people and report on their staff engagement and wellbeing, to help create happier, healthier and ultimately more productive workforces. This is fundamental to businesses and individuals.”

Organisations of all sizes are able to take part on a voluntary basis in the 2014 benchmark. However all members of the FTSE100 will be benchmarked, either by themselves through completing the benchmark survey or by Towers Watson using publicly-available information.

Duncan Young, deputy head of sustainability at RBS Group and member of the BITC Workwell Steering Group, said: “Business leaders are increasingly realising that long term sustainable growth means implementing employee engagement and wellbeing on a company-wide basis. The result is these companies also become much more attractive prospects to investors looking for long-term, sustainable, value.

‘At RBS, signing up to the BITC Workwell benchmark support package will help us to improve our public reporting and drive development of employee engagement and wellbeing strategies. That's good news, not just for our employees, but for the long term success of our business.”

Last year’s results indicated that those who choose to self-complete typically score much higher than those who do not. Companies participating in the 2014 Business in the Community Workwell benchmark will receive a detailed and confidential feedback report that will provide gap analysis of their performance in comparison to industry peers, as well as making recommendations for improvement.