Tips for Building Wellness in the Workplace
Modern-day workplaces must focus on both the physical and mental health of their employees.
These strategies focused on employee health are often called wellness or well-being initiatives.
Not only do wellness initiatives make your workplace more attractive for potential employees, but they can also improve the lifestyle and happiness of already tenured employees.
Wellness initiatives typically center around changing the workday and lifestyle of every employee to make their office a more enjoyable place to work five days a week.
In this post, we will go over some tips to help launch or enhance your companys wellness initiatives.
How to Launch Your Wellness Program
If you wish to take your companys culture to the next level, you must launch a wellness initiative.
Many people may not know where to start or if their actions will have any impact.
The actions you need to take depend on the size of your company, how healthy your workplace already is, and if top leadership is on board with wellness changes.
Here are some tips you can use that will help you launch your program:
- Make it clear what behaviors or conditions you are targeting.
- Anonymously survey your employees asking them what obstacles (mental or physical) they face every day at work. Many office employees struggle with depression that their employers are not aware of. Likewise, if your employees are by in large in poor physical shape, daily life will be more difficult for them.
- Both mental health issues and poor physical performance are side effects of sitting at a desk for eight hours a day.
- Feel free to pull information from employee health assessments to get more accurate data.
- Once you feel confident you have identified the most harmful obstacles your employees face, you can set those obstacles as the targets of your wellness initiative.
- Set goals.
- Your goals should be specific, measurable, flexible, and achievable.
- Ask yourself what success looks like for your company. Is it getting more employees to try therapy? Is it an overall improvement in mood and attitude? Or is physical fitness the most beneficial path?
- Focus on one clear goal to start and provide your employees with resources to reach that goal.
- Announce your program and have a clear mission statement.
- In one sentence make clear what your wellness program will accomplish. Announce the program to your employees and build enthusiasm.
- Create a budget.
- You will need to determine funds, a timeline, and the strategies you will employ.
- Be realistic. Will this program take a year to have an effect? Longer? How much money will it take?
- You dont want a half-baked program. Request the funds and time you will realistically need.
- Assign clear leadership.
- If you hope to have success, a top-down approach is necessary. Get the top leadership at your company on board with this program and have them take an active part.
- Anchor your strategy sessions in corporate meetings and meet corporate goals.
- Ask upper leadership to be heavily involved in this process and follow up often.
- Ideally, a wellness program will improve the lives of every employee, including leadership.
- Get leadership completely on board with your wellness initiative and its chances of success will multiply tenfold.
Consult Anthem for more information on building a wellness initiative:
Time Well Spent: Program Success - Anthem
A Healthy Workplace wont Be Built in a Day
Wellness initiatives are central to modern-day, healthy workplaces.
If your company is serious about taking the next step in employee wellness, you must ensure you are making wellness a central part of your business.
The tips above are just a launching point. Your wellness program must be tailored to your business and your employees. What works for one company may not work for another. Be smart about your changes and take your time if you wish to see success.
For more wellness tips and resources to build a better company, join your business or Chamber of Commerce with the Southern Ohio Chamber Alliance (SOCA). SOCA offers the best and most effective tools when it comes to building a modern, productive business focused on employee well-being.