Workplace Wellness
Consistency – Relationships – Communication is the key to Workplace wellness. It is the physical and mental health in places of business. It’s about creating a healthy culture with in a team.
It is definitely not about loosing weight but creating healthy practices that leads to a healthy environment.
The average Aust. Employee has an increasingly busy life, longer and more demanding work hours, which translates into stress, and creates negative feelings, affecting attendance and productivity.
Being disengaged, more personal leave, more costs, less profit.
And not to mention the shortage of suitable employees for roles – which increases demand on current employees to fill and cover those empty roles.
Businesses need to implement wellness strategies and practices to help alleviate the effects of illnesses short and longterm. I believe it’s not only the responsibility of the Leadership team to initiate this change; but the employees also bringing these ideas
Research shows the companies that invest in wellness programs
> Reducing personal leave costs
> Building workplace culture
> Increases productivity
> Strengthens business relationships
> Employee retention
Some statistics from 2022:
> 94% of service professionals spend over 50 hours working each week
> Approx. $190 billion per year is spent on addressing the psychological and physical effects of burnout
> 66% of workers feel they do not have work life balance
> Only 23% of companies believe they are promoting work life balance; and companies that do promote work life balance, record two times more productivity.
I was talking to my mates at ‘The Proven Group HR consultants’ in Ballarat – about workplace health and safety and wellbeing – and they said they are spreading the message to their clients, to invest in employee retention, by increasing their engagement and professional development, making them feel valued, through an assortment of methods, involving education and physical activity and interaction.
We are living longer, and retirement age seems to be pushing back too, so our quality of life and work life needs to improve.
Why? What is the benefit to the business?
With any business we need to get a ROI (Return on investment).
We need to change our thinking from “We can’t afford it” to “We can’t afford not to”. It is the future of business, so we all need to start thinking progressively.
CULTURE: Creating wellness builds culture and good culture builds personal and business health. Employees become engaged, loyal, invested in their work, become more productive, improved energy levels and employee retention increases.
Creating teamwork, mate-ship, camaraderie, and the connection between employers and employees also helps to understand each other and encourages support.
BARRIERS: There may seem to be ‘barriers’ for many workplaces who feel they are unable to implement these practices; but where there is a will, there is a way. A ‘barrier’ is a state of mind and is a form of an excuse. If your ‘why’ is big enough, you will find a ‘how’.
“There is no time.” : we all have the same 24 hours in a day, its what we choose to do with them is what we value.
“We dont have the funding.” : it doesn’t have to cost anything. The beach, parks, forrests are all free.
“We all live in different areas.” : plan the events in advance to enable more people to be able to schedule in, or have several occasions in proximal areas, or online get-togethers.
HOW: What ever the activity or the message is – it needs to be consistent and have open communication. There is no point if is only twice a year, consistency will embed the emotion of feeling valued and enable it to become a culture.
Start at the beginning; with every new employee coming into the business, set them up for this culture it will start a healthy mindset and show them you care straight away.
The overall business might have these values already, but the message needs to be channeled down through all of the direct reports through to the rest of their teams. One team – one dream. Not one, but all as a whole.
It can be as simple as a walking group at lunchtimes, inspiration boards, allocated breaks for movement/ stretching, to fruit in tea rooms, social dinners, going to expo’s, keynote speakers, meditation rooms, team building games, employ a wellness/ team bonding coach to implement social events.
Coach Kristen at Team McLean Fitness Club will encourage and support the implementation of a wellness program, a regular team bonding social event, or a group exercise regime.
Which will build to those points mentioned earlier of – building relationships across the business – building positive and engaging culture and attitudes – therefore increase productivity and output, employee retention and reducing personal leave costs.
Our specific programs are designed with your needs in mind, to understand what your workplace needs, interests and results. The fitness and wellbeing programs can be designed to the specific demographic and specific population of employees.
These programs and social events can include :
> Stress relief and mindful meditation – guided breathing and refocus
> Stretching and core exercises – Mat Pilates and Yoga
> Strong and fast sweat sessions – circuits, boxing and HIIT
> Fun activities and retreats, BBQs or dinners
> Engaging modern entertainment resources such as “Silent Disco Headsets” and “Escape Room” locations.
> Massage & Naturopathy services
> Food and beverages events
Fun and fitness is for everyone, individuals, sports or fitness clubs, community groups. Changing our actions about work life balance, focussing on all aspects of wellness from a holistic approach and implementing healthy changes into daily routine. See Active Geelong for more information on local events.