When you’re considering the happiness of your employees, you should, of course, think about their career satisfaction, but you also need to take into account their wellness. Workplace wellness goes beyond offering a great health insurance plan. Though those benefits are important, too, you must think holistically about wellness. Offer ways for employees to focus on and strengthen their physical, mental, emotional, and financial health. Prioritizing wellness in a workplace leads to a stronger company culture along with many other benefits.
Your workplace should not just be a place where employees clock in and out. Workers today value a work-life balance and want their job to offer more than just a paycheck. Offering opportunities for employees to have wellness resources and outlets shows them that you care. Create a company culture that cares about balance, both to increase employee retention and to attract strong new talent. Workplace wellness should not feel like a chore. It can also be fun. Events like group yoga classes or organizing fitness competitions are great opportunities for employees to get to know eachother better and form stronger bonds.
The last year has been tough on all employees and all workplaces. Many workers are feeling burnt out and need wellness resources more than ever as they deal with stress and exhaustion. Putting a focus on workplace wellness helps to prevent turnover, encourages engagement, maintains production, and builds a strong company culture.
Before integrating a wellness program into your workplace, it’s important to find out what employees actually want. Since every workplace and company culture is different, there is not a one-size-fits-all approach to creating your wellness program. Poll your team to see what kinds of activities and offerings are most interesting and important to them. This information can be gathered through a survey, a suggestion box, through your Human Resources department, or any other way you can think of where employees can send their thoughts and feedback as you test ideas. If your team is not engaged with your offerings, then any wellness initiative will be a waste of time and money. So after using initial feedback to create your program, make sure that your employees are aware of the new offerings. Keep the lines of communication open for more feedback to ensure initiatives serving employees so they are worthwhile and more likely to be long lasting.
You can use internal and external support to bring wellness into your workplace. Ask your leadership team to help support new initiatives. If no one has the bandwidth or qualifications, bring in outside help. This may include consultants and instructors.
It’s also important to ensure you have a budget. Some wellness programs cost nothing, while other activities need supplies and financial support. Don’t shy away from anything just because it will cost money. Remember, you are making an investment in your employees and your company overall.