Wellbeing At Work: The Ultimate Guide

None of your business! That is what the wellbeing of your employees is, right? After all, they are responsible for their own emotional state, and what you want them to do is focus on the task in hand.

However, studies have proven that employers that take care of their workers’ wellbeing can reap numerous benefits including improved productivity, better morale and job satisfaction ratings, and even a reduction in employee absence and attrition.

To that end, wellbeing absolutely needs to be part of your business. Lucky, you can find out how to maximize this in the post below.

Fitness classes

Let’s start with the least’ out there’ strategy possible, fitness classes and the gym.

Of course, we all know that exercise has both an instant positive effect on the individual, boosting their endorphin levels, as well as a long term positive benefits to health. Obviously, both of these things are valuable to employers in their workforce and can not only improve productivity but help to save money on staff absences as well.

What that means is, that as an essential part of your business wellbeing program, you need to encourage staff to exercise as much as possible. One way to do this is to provide discounted or free memberships to gyms that are close to work, something that means staff can go on the way to or home from work, or even in their lunch break.

There are other methods you can use as well, and one includes hosting a fitness or movement class in the workplace. Some companies even do this during work hours, so staff technically get paid for working out rather than being at their desk. Of course, this may seem like it’s a little over the top, but as the benefits are so significant, it might be something that your company wishes to consider.

Meditation

There are other classes and sessions that your business can run on site as well. In fact, running any initiative on site means that the take up is likely to be much larger. After all, the easier you make it for people to do, the more will do it, and the more benefits your business will reap.

Such classes include meditation, which in the workplace setting usually come in the form of secular Mindfulness. This being the practice of paying attention to the breath, allowing thoughts to come and go, and generally getting more in touch with what is going on inside and around you, without feeling the need to act purely on instinct.

To help you to facilitate this, you can find many resources, videos, and guided medication course online. You will even find that there are mindfulness specialists that can come into the workplace and teach face to face classes, as well. The end goal being that staff will not only be able to better control their stress levels but make wiser business decisions and communicate in a much more effective way with their colleges.

Flexible working

Next, if you wish to improve staff wellbeing at work, it’s crucial that you help them achieve a better work-life balance by offering flexible hours. It’s also essential to provide your staff with more autonomy on where they can work including being able to work away from their desks, outside of the office, at home, or at a location of their choice.

Of course, to be able to do this your business needs to be set up for remote working, and that means you absolutely need an agile communications system that can allow all of your employees to interact no matter where they are. Don’t fret if you don’t know where to start with this though, as posts like UCaaS – The Definitive Guide can give you all the information you need to set up a cloud-based communications system that will keep everyone connected no matter where they are. Something that will ensure your business will continue to work efficiently while providing better conditions for your employees.

Creating the right atmosphere

It doesn’t matter how many positive incentives that you put in place if the atmosphere at your business is a toxic one. In fact, such an environment can really drag down morale and cause you to hemorrhage good staff.

Of course, the key here is to create an atmosphere of positivity while still focusing on productivity. What that means is that any instances of blame culture need to be addressed and where possible the focus need to be shifted onto responsibility and learning from mistakes.

Additionally, few workplaces exist without at least some toxic employees. You can usually recognize these by the fact that no one wants to say no or get into a confrontation with them when it comes to working tasks. Many such employees are also quite happy to go on about their own personal and emotional problems, but silence anyone else doing the same.

Finally, those who manipulate others into doing what they don’t want, as well as expect them to do too much may also be thought of as toxic and need to be dealt with.

Of course, actually dealing with them may be a challenging task, because many don’t understand that the traits they are displayed are unhelpful and damaging to your employees’ morale. To that end, offering support via counseling, training as a first resort, and then using to your company’s discipline system may help to modify their behavior.  

Little perks to make employees feel appreciated

Lastly, you may be surprised as to how much difference small perks during the working day can make to the wellbeing of your employees. With that in mind, organizing social events, or letting people leave an hour early for big sports games can go a long way to improve morale.

Healthy snacks are a great perk to offer your employees.

Additionally, you may wish to consider implementing a healthy snacking initiative where the business spay for the food, or even, on occasion, making small gestures like providing pot plants for desks and blankets for when it gets cold.

All things that can demonstrate to your employees that you value them, and care about their wellbeing as well as their work.

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