Workplace Wellness Whisperer – (September 10)
Hello Workplace Wellness Seeker,
I had an amazing podcast interview with Jennifer Stevenson who
has more than 13 years of experience delivering a variety of yoga, meditation, self-
development and leadership training programs internationally with the Art of Living
Foundation. Check out my post on the 5 Essentials for Self-Development on my Instagram or Facebook.
🙏Gratitude Practice🙏
Did you know that increasing gratitude at work improves employee mental health,
fosters relationships between colleagues, and creates a positive work culture?
🙏
What is one thing a colleague has done for you recently that you’re grateful for?
🌸===🌸
“In the US alone, nearly two-thirds of employees say they are stressed all or most of the time at work.”
A report from Ginger found that 81% of workers said that symptoms of workplace stress range from fatigue and anxiety to physical ailments causing them to miss work. Stress can cause many health issues mentally and physically. Thus, it makes total sense for organizations to offer workplace wellness programs to benefit to their employees’ health and productivity.
My Workplace Wellness Calendar can guide you with some ideas for implementing your wellness strategy.
What are 4 basic steps to run a corporate wellness program?
- Reflect
Assess the status quo. Enable your employees to make private mental health check-ins as well as take monthly corporate wellbeing surveys to get engagement and wellness data in real-time.
- Create Direction
Based on the personal and company reflections, encourage your employees to set private and professional wellbeing goals and create an actionable direction that leads to both wellbeing and productivity.
- Take Action
Employees become self-leading by syncing their to-dos with personal and company goals. Continuous mental health coaching will make sure no one is overwhelmed.
- Repeat
Repeat the process to raise resilience on individual and organizational levels. Use metrics, insights, and resources to ultimately create a positive wellbeing culture.
I invite you to benefit from this video series where I discuss the 5 mistakes wellness professionals make that hamper the effectiveness of their wellness program. Visit my YouTube channel here.
Read, Listen and Share!
Pitfall #1.Lacks Leadership Support
Wellness programs don’t happen without the support of key leaders. Identify your resources and key people, and engender their ongoing backing. If you introduce wellness programs but have senior leaders and managers who don’t foster well-being employees may end up seeing your wellness communications as just lip service. But when wellness is at the heart of everything you do, it’s easier to share it with employees and watch them follow your lead. Basically, I’m asking the leaders to walk-the-talk! Consider creating a wellness committee so that your employees have a say in co-creating their wellness program.
Listen to the Self-Care Goddess Podcast Episode #22 titled “Toxins 101: Top 10 Toxins Compromising Your Health & Wellbeing ” on your favourite podcast delivery platform or directly on my website.
Pitfall #2. Lacks Integration
Avoid creating something quickly that doesn’t tap into long-term behavioral change. Instead, establish a comprehensive strategic plan that builds employee engagement over time. Make sure the wellness program is customized to your organizations needs and aligned with the company’s mission and goals. And just as important that it’s integrated with other cultural and wellbeing initiatives and programs. And remember to be measuring progress and results so it can be improved and successes can be celebrated. Why not include a wellness goal in your staff ’s yearly performance objectives? So instead of thinking about wellness as just a program, make sure it’s part of your corporate culture.
Check out my amazing delicious ‘Gluten-Free Raspberry Almond Crumble’ recipe.
Pitfall #3. Lacks Engagement
As you can imagine, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work well for well-being and health concerns. In a workplace where there’s usually a mix of Gen X, Baby Boomers, and Millennials, it may feel challenging to address everyone’s issues. So I recommend Surveying individual generations and their needs can help leadership better understand what type of programs would work best for each group. This is to support employee choice without making it overwhelming, consider providing a wellness credit so employees can choose the activity that works best for them. Make wellness programs accessible by sharing information through team meetings, corporate emails and your corporate intranet.
Pitfall #4. Lacks Consistency
Avoid trying for quick fix wellness initiatives such as often “flavor of the month,” challenges, contests, biometric screening, and lunch-and-learn events, that are often forgotten or worst not integrated with other initiatives or not followed up on. Consistency can carve mountains. Having a well thought out integrated wellness plan demonstrates to your employees that you’re serious and dedicated to their wellbeing. This will increase their participation because they will come to expect it and even look forward to it. Provided that you’ve created the program with their feedback and needs in mind.
Download my FREE Morning Routine and learn how to: 1. Increase Energy 2. Improve Sleep & 3. Decrease Mood Swings.
Pitfall #5. Lacks a Holistic Approach
Some wellness programs lack a Holistic Approach to Physical & Mental Health. While customizing the program to your workforce is important, make sure you don’t end up with a fragmented initiative focusing just on physical wellness like exercise and eating well. Since body and mind are connected, giving your employees physical wellness tools without any tools to combat stress such as breathwork will yield only partial results.
If you’re ready to leverage your workplace wellness strategy and explore how to optimize individual, team and your company’s performance, book your complimentary Workplace Wellness call with me here.