Employee wellness, why should you care about it?

 

The purpose of workplace wellness initiatives is to improve the employees’ health and general wellbeing (Grossmeier, 2020). Employee wellness contributes to a better organizational culture (Grossmeier, 2020). Employee wellness also helps team members achieve a better work-life balance thus allowing for a more engaged and productive employee. The initiatives are created as health promoting programs with measurable goals whose ultimate goal is to increase the employees’ ability to perform while also improving their well-being including their mental health. However, the benefits of employee wellness initiatives extent beyond the employees themselves, it can also improve the financial well-being of the organization. Every year, millions of dollars are spent on health insurance costs for employees, that cost seems to increase over time and that’s because insurance companies assume folks are getting sicker over time given their lifestyles and anticipate they will require more medical care with time (Grossmeier, 2020). Let us not forget also the ramifications we need to deal with when an employee is not in its optimum health (Mancl, 2019). For example, an employee who has suffered a heart attack will likely be out of work unexpectedly, and may not return to full duty for a while. A good wellness initiative will allow instead of employees to get healthier and thus decrease the costs associated with insurance premiers, which translate into less money invested by the organizations who offer health insurance premium coverage in their benefit package.

 

A workplace wellness intervention that my team and I have recently adopted is we have committed ourselves to eating healthier lunches and increase the number of steps we take daily. This all started after a number of our employees received recent lab results that called for them to make wiser decisions about what they were eating and how active they were before their health would continue to decline. While the intention was never that we lose weight some team members have reported weight loss, but more importantly we are all feeling better about ourselves. It has also helped us deal with stress better and has motivated some team members to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Finally, employee wellness should be a priority for leaders in all industries. Employees who are healthy and have a well-balanced life are more likely to be more effective and productive in the work they do. Employee wellness initiatives should not just aim to improve physical health, but just as importantly we should address the mental health of our employees and allow for psychologically healthier teams.

For more inforation on how to keep your team's psychologically healthy see my blog "The psychological health of your team."

 However, Mancl (2019) warns that leaders considering developing employee wellness strategies to consider a few factors first. First there are the financial costs associated with implementing a wellness program, however as leaders it's important to compare these with the costs of supporting an employee who is sick and whose insurance premium will continue to rise. In addition, to communicating the objective of the initiative to the team, the leaders must ensure the current atmosphere and organizational culture allows for the initiatives to be successful. For instance, an initiative that encourages employees to walk more during the day to increase physical activity won’t be successful if the employees are not permitted to leave their desks during their work hours. Moreover, Mancl (2019) encourages leaders to show their commitment to employee wellness by investing in resources that will educate the employees on healthier habits as well. One way to do this is by either partnering with a local gym or bringing some of those services on site. For any goal to be achieved, it must be measured and its important leaders have touchpoints along the way to determine whether or not the team is heading in the right direction (Mancl, 2019). A way I have seen employers fulfill this is by having employees create their own individual goals for health improvements and then report their progress. Also, a great way to know whether improvement has been achieved is during a health screening fair. To improve the odds of employee participation it will be important to engage them in the process of developing these strategies (Mancl, 2019). On that note, it’s important for leaders to know that participation may not be at 100% and in fact participation challenges (Mancl, 2019) should be expected. While participation may change over time with some employees dropping out and others joining in over time, consistency on the programs will be as way for leaders to show that they are truly committed.  Furthermore, to keep momentum and maintained the employees motivated it’s important to reward the progress and celebrate success!

 

To help you as a leader get into employee wellness and rip it's benefits here are a few small ways to go about achieving employee wellness. 

• create a friendly competition with your team on who can get more steps in on a daily basis 
• when providing your team with lunch include only healthy choices 
• do away with unhealthy snacks on those vending machines, and instead include healthier options
• encourage employees to park further from the office, so they can walk more every day
• set up an alarm every hour to remind employees to get up and walk a bit 
• encourage them to walk after eating during their lunch break rather than just sitting watching their phones 
• provide with training on better work-life balance 
• allow employees to take time off to re-charge 
• create team-building activities that will also provide them with physical activties, but also allow them to take a mental break. For example, bowling together every month, or going out for walks as a group, softball or basketball teams within the organization..etc. 
• if you can afford to, bring in a massage therapist for the team as a way to show your appreciation to them. 
• provide educating material on creating better eating habits 
• start a library where employees can exchange books with each other, and take one of their daily breaks to read quitely. 
  
  
  Feel free to share your own ideas on increasing employee wellness with us by commenting below. 
  Thank you for reading!  

References

Grossmeier, J., & Johnson, S. S. (2020). Factors Driving Exemplary Workplace Health and
               Well-Being Initiatives. American Journal of Health Promotion, 34(1), 105–106.

Mancl, C. (2019). Seven Steps to Creating Value-Driven Workplace Wellness Initiatives,
                              Professional Safety, 64(7), 12–13.

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