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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Nobody wants to get back to work, so who are we going to blame for it?

 

In the last few weeks, we have seen another consequence of the pandemic that has come to no surprise to some of us. This time last year many were out of work because COVID19 had closed their businesses or because they were not considered essential workers. As a result of it, the unemployment rates skyroketed, and the leaders of our country took on the hard task of ensuring everyone would have enough to provide for their families. Those in industries like the hospitality industry appreciated the decision, as the uncertainty of the time it would take to get back to normal and the lack of childcare for some families kept them from being able to seek a job elsewhere. 

Under the Stimulus bill in addition to tax breaks the bill offers families $300 weekly payments according to MSN.com back in March 2021. The American People Rescue Plan stimulus has been slightly updated this year, as at the beginning of the pandemic, so rightly the benefits were more extensive. However, at this point of the pandemic many are calling for the benefits to cease. The reason for it being, in December 2020 the long-awaited vaccines were being deployed throughout the United States. It was expected that by the Spring of 2021 mostof the citizens having been vaccinated, things would be back to normal. However, as you have noticed things are far from over. As of two days ago 290 million doses have been administered, although a little over 132 million people have been fully vaccinated, closed to only 40% of the total U.S. population has been fully vaccinated. While the reasons for that might be subject for another writing, the truth is we haven't vaccinated even half of the United States citizens, and businesses are now getting back to, well, business. 

If you have taken your family to a restaurant lately for example, you have likely experienced slower service, not so much because of the COVID19 restrictions, but because of the lack of workers. On May 5th, my family and I went out to celebrate my oldest 15th birthday, and the restaurant manager, was our waiter and cook. 😨 in whatever, little time he had in between tasks we chatted a bit, and discussed why workers don't want to get back to work. Yeah, we talked about the government stepping in a bit too much by helping a little too much, but we also talked about what are leaders and organizations doing to their workforce that would put them in such a situation. 

While we all know for many workers especially does in the hospitality industry they are being paid more to be at home collecting unemployment than they are to be at work, I want talk about why did we get here in the first place. Many workers are citing reasons for their unwillingness to return to work as lack of benefits such as, paid time off, health insurance and the way their leaders treat them. Many restaurant workers depend on tips more than salary to support their families. Restaurant owners often deny their workers benefits, and let's face it, if they did chances are services and products would increase in price which, at the end would affect us all, however here we are now with many restaurants operating at limited capacity now that restrictions have been lifted because there are no workers. 

A recent poll I posted on LinkedIn, showed folks are divided as to whether the organizations or businesses are to be blamed for their workers unwillingness to come back, or is it the government for helping too much. However, as always, I'm a strong advocate of employee experience. I do believe  that people know the unemployment benefits won't last long, (the current bill has an end date of September 6, 2021) and with the eminent need to return to work soon for everyone they know they have to secure their positions before there are no opened positions anywhere. But really who wants to get back to an oger for boss and no benefits, while working harder than ever? And let me tell you something, this isn't a concern that should be unique to the hospitality industry either. Leaders in other industries including the health care industry should learn from this experience as well. There are those in the hospitals whose funds are dependent on Medicaid for their operations, who should anticipate budget cuts as a results of the Nation's debt for paying all these stimuluses. 

If you, as a leader have not considered how this is going to affect you and your business in the near future, you better start brainstorming because this is eminent. 

Businesses are now offering bonuses to sign on workers and thankfully many are opting to include benefits in the package they offer their newcomers. However, now more than ever it's important to give employees a reason to continue working for you. Whether you need to do a market analysis and ensure you are remaining competitive with those out there who offer the same as you, or you need to add benefits to the ones you already offer, every leader of every organization should be brainstorming right now on how they are going to retain their employees or soon they will be facing even more financial difficulties as anticipated. 

So, what do employees want? They want to feel appreciated; they want to be listened to. You appreciate those who work for you by paying them well, by encouraging and supporting their professional growth. Employees are listened to when they are engaged in the decision-making process, not when a decision is made in the C-suite and then shoved down everyone's throat. Show them respect! Your employees is your first customer. You make them happy, and everything else will fall into place. So enough with the patient and customer experience already. Let's start with employee experience and even your customers will appreciate it! 

When your employees are happy everyone wins! 

references 

Carlsen, A., Huang, P., Levitt, Z., & Wood, D., (2021). How Is The COVID-19 Vaccination     
      Campaign Going In Your State? The Coronavirus Crisis. Updated May 28,
      2021. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/01/28/960901166/how-is-the-covid-19-
     vaccination-campaign-going-in-your-state

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The challenges of e-leadership

The challenges of e-leadership 

Just a few months ago those of us in leadership positions were accustomed to coming into the office in the morning, saying good morning and getting right to business with the staff. From the morning huddle, to sharing a cup of coffee in the breakroom and then on to other tasks that often required me visiting their cubicles or walking over to the other areas of the office to make myself available to those not in my immediate proximity, my days were filled with quick conversations, funny and not so funny jokes and more steps, definitely more steps and less snacks. Then COVID19 happened and changed everything, and did so, fast, so fast that we have yet to grasp exactly what’s happened even two months into the ordeal.  

The current global situation forced many of us to exercise a different management style than we’ve been used to all along. Many have lost their jobs and for those of us who still have one, while grateful, our world has been shaken to say the least. The team I got so used to seeing daily became a virtual team, I can hear and read, but no longer see. The office I had so carefully decorated to reflect my style and create a space that would allow me to become productive, turned into a laptop I bring everywhere to monitor staff, communicate with them and do video conferences from the comfort of... wherever I’m at that day. Communication has been a challenge as a quick question or answer now requires a lot of typing and careful consideration of my words, as a virtual world doesn’t do away with professional acceptable communication. I often must remind myself not to abbreviate during my textual communication and reading the messages over and over before sending them out to make sure the context is not just appropriate but carries no unwanted “tone.” Because let’s face it, if communicating via email to someone who’s left to interpret your writing however they please wasn’t hard enough, try sending a message through instant messaging to someone who’s falling back on productivity or doesn’t appear to be doing what they are supposed to.  

                     

Communicating professionally by employing proper grammar (and I know you've noticed my lack thereof) with a virtual team isn’t the only challenge though, try boosting collaboration between team members (Darics, 2020) who are no longer physically together. While working remotely everyone is expected to perform and complete tasks efficiently, however things happen in real life practice and that still holds true in a remote digital environment. Staff get sick, systems crash, and work needs to still be completed and thus reassigning needs to happen, and it’s no longer as easy as letting the person in the next cubicle know someone will be out for the day, to answer their phone calls and respond to their messages. Team members must interact in order to work together towards a common goal (Cascio, & Shuryngailo, 2003). The separation by distance and time can often present a barrier. Fortunately, technology advances allow for team members to communicate with each other electronically. In addition, video conferencing has gained momentum given the current situation with even school districts around the globe making use of the different platforms to teach students. Moreover, as leaders we must continue to make use of our abilities to maintain the workforce motivated and working towards the organizational goals while making use of the resources available to use whether it be a phone call, email, video chat or video conferences.  

                    

  And while you might have read this article hoping for some advice, I'm here to tell you, I have none! I'm navigating new territory here, but one thing I will say, hang in there. Enjoy it while it lasts, because as my father used to say, "this too shall pass."

Cascio, W.F., & Shuryngailo, S. (2003). E-leadership and Virtual Teams. Organizational Dynamics. 31 (4) 362-376.  

Darics, E. (2020). E-Leadership or “How to Be Boss in Instant Messaging?” The Role of          Nonverbal Communication. International Journal of Business Communication, 57(1), 3–         29. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1177/2329488416685068   

Frustrating things managers have to deal with

A few years ago I set out to do some research on what's the most frustrating things managers have to encounter. As a young manager myself, I wanted to know if the issues I was experiencing were something common among others in my position, or was it simply my management style that was causing me to fall into these situations. Let me tell you, that was one heck a quest!

                                              
While it's very easy to find the things that managers can do to frustrate their subordinates, from how to handle an easily frustrated manager, to what are the most annoying things managers do and an endless list of ways to go about "surviving" a bad boss; it takes a few more clicks to find out what frustrates a manager.

After countless hours of research, interviews and observations I was able to come up with 3 things that frustrate managers the most. The worst part of it all, as a manager you are bound to experience each at least once in your career.

The three most frustrating things managers experience are; decisions made by upper management without taking in consideration your input, the bad apple who spoils the barrel, and having a direct report make more money than you do. Depending on what's important for you, one may have a bigger effect on you than the other. 
                                                           


For example, millennials are known for their ambition to grow professionally faster, and with the most monetary reward possible (Barbuto, & Gottfreson, 2016) therefore for a manager in this generation it might be more frustrating to have a direct report who makes more money than him than having to deal with the negative person who's constantly affecting the morale.
However, that's not to say millennials, or anyone for that matter, don't get frustrated with the other issues! 
                                                   

In fact, having upper management make decisions without taking your input into consideration is a very common frustration among managers. Having upper management make decisions that will affect yours and your staff's every day life without consulting you can not only frustrate you, but it also puts you in a tough position having to relay the message of the new change to your staff. In a study conducted by Mohr, & Wolfram (2010) a positive correlation was found between managers who felt low support from their superiors and their levels of irritation. Although, common sense dictates that when decisions are made, those affected by it should have the first voice on the process of decision making, we all know the saying;  'common sense is the least common of the senses.' Many senior managers still make decisions without incorporating staff feedback and usually the middle managers are the ones left to deal with the aftermath, especially when you are having to 'sell' the decision to your team as a good one for the organization when in reality you are very frustrated over it.

                                                            
While you may think that as a boss you will be making more money than those reporting to you,  and trust me, you're not alone in thinking this, as many people share the sentiment, I'm here to tell you from personal experience my friend, that is not correct! In fact, it happens more often than you'd care to think. While the reasons for that may vary by organization and field, a possible reason is the external market value of your skills. What this means is that you possess a special group of skills that facilitated they way for you to reach your current positions, but the same is true for your team members. Depeding on the demand of those skills in your field, you may end up making less than they do. And trust me, signing the performance evaluation for an employee who is making more money than you are is at the top of the most frustrating things as a manager!
                                                           

And last but not least, another frustrating thing managers have to deal with is the negative staff member who no matter what you say or do, will always have something negative to say about it. Fred Lee, in his book; If Disney Ran your Hospital; calls them the woodpeckers (2004).  They are known as woodpeckers because while their pecking may initially seem innocent, it will continue on until at one point it draws a hole in your ship that can threaten to sink it. The frustrating part is as we all know the Department of Labor frowns upon the discharge of an employee for being negative. The quest for collecting the necessary data, and following the appropriate disciplinary process for these individuals can be very frustrating, especially if they perform well otherwise. However,  the consequences of their negativity can be very debilitating for your team's morale

Go ahead tell me what else frustrates you! 

references
Barbuto, J. E., & Gottfredson, R. K. (2016). Human Capital, the Millennial’s Reign, and the Need For Servant Leadership. Journal of Leadership Studies, 10(2), 59–63. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1002/jls.21474

Lee, F. (2004) If Disney Ran your Hospital. Bozeman, Vt by Second River Healthcare Press. 

Mohr, G., & Wolfram, H.-J. (2010). Stress among managers: The importance of dynamic tasks, predictability, and social support in unpredictable times. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 15(2), 167–179. https://doi-org.proxy1.ncu.edu/10.1037/a0018892