10 Tips to Boost Workplace Wellness: Workplace wellness is no longer a trend but a priority. Most workplaces have shifted their focus on building comprehensive employee experience that blends productivity, fulfilment, and wellbeing.
If you are looking to boost wellness in your workplace, it is time to include these ten tips in your employee engagement strategy.
What is Workplace Wellness
Workplace wellness is the policies, procedures, or systems in place that support positive health and behaviour for employees. Medical screening, fitness programs, healthcare memberships, mental health training – there are plenty of ways that companies a foster a healthy, supportive culture.
Companies that invest in their employee’s wellbeing know the clear benefits associated with workplace wellness. Making these efforts can result in employees performing better, actively taking up work, managing time efficiently, and improving overall productivity.
Here are reasons why companies must invest in boosting workplace wellness:
- Healthy employees do not suffer stress, sleep deprivation, or burnout.
- Healthy employees are less likely to take sick leaves and time off work.
- Employee retention is stronger when employees are happy to work at a company.
- Increases Trust in the Employer
- Promotes Employee Interaction inside and outside the workplace
- Increases Overall Happiness of Employees.
To achieve workplace wellness, companies must be willing to explore the different ways that can benefit employees.
10 Tips to Boost Workplace Wellness
Here are 10 tips to help you accomplish small yet significant wellness goals for your employees.
Create clear boundaries between work and home
Try not to let your work spill over into your personal life as much as possible. If you need to bring work stuff at home, designate a separate area to work.
Having a designated work space at home will let you separate time to work and time to relax.
Identify the causes of stress and poor mental health
Workplace stress affects 73 per cent of employees in Australia. For this reason, employers need to understand which factors contribute most to the employees feeling this way.
There are many reasons for this, including poor physical conditions, safety issues, unrealistic deadlines, long hours, or unmanageable workloads.
One survey shows that a significant proportion of workers would feel that their mental health would improve if their organisations would provide the right training for them and their managers.
Encourage healthy movement
Engaging in regular physical exercises can build one’s resilience to stress. To boost employees’ well-being, encourage your employees to take regular breaks to move throughout the workday.
It can be walks during breaks or organising work sports teams such as yoga, Pilates, or Zumba. All these can help improve workers’ mood, energy levels, sleep, and overall health.
Set up flexible working arrangements
Research has shown that providing employees with flexible working arrangements can benefit their mental health, improving their well-being and job satisfaction. In addition, it also boosts workers’ emotional engagement, making them more likely to speak positively about the business and less likely to quit.
De-clutter your space
A bright and airy workspace is proven to improve productivity and the general wellbeing of the workers. Employers can help by brightening the office interior with a fresh coat and keeping the workspace clutter-free through a clever organisation.
Take a break
Work can be overwhelming sometimes for employees – the workloads, office relationships, and deadlines. It is often a case of constantly trying to balance everything, making workers feel relentless and almost impossible to sustain.
Achieving work-life balance takes a good dose of self-discipline and taking breaks. Even a short break in the middle of your shift can make a difference.
Get away from your computer for a couple of minutes, put your phone down, and get into the fresh air. You can also opt to do something personally gratifying, such as reading a book, doing some stretches, or anything that allows you to take a breather.
Doing all these things will help improve your overall health and, at the same time, boost workplace wellness.
Practice good all-around self-care
Prevention is better than cure when it comes to employee wellbeing. It is best to take steps to prevent problems from happening in the first place.
Often, this means doing the basics, such as eating healthy food, getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, exercising regularly, staying hydrated, and maintaining a good social life.
Create a supportive company culture
Workplace wellness often beings with the company culture and how it prioritises open communication and honest feedback between employees and management.
To maintain these two, the management needs to understand the needs of the employees and provide emotional support in times of need.
To achieve this, train your managers so they are capable of offering mental health support to their team. They should know how to spot signs of mental ill health and how to provide help in a mental crisis.
Find purpose
One element of boosting motivation and workplace wellness has a purpose. A purpose is a sense of “why” behind the things and actions you do.
Employees can find purpose in their work by helping others or contributing to something bigger that makes them feel fulfilled. Alternatively, they can develop their sense of purpose by seeing the impact of their work towards their company and others.
Finding purpose in every work you do is a good track to improve your well-being.
Practice mindfulness
Mindfulness is a form of meditation that promotes having non-judgmental awareness of the present moment. This technique has become increasingly popular in recent years, with countless people using it to get through physical and mental struggles.
Among its other benefits, mindfulness is proven to help relieve pain, reduce stress, and ease anxiety.
Understand your mental health
It is important to understand how conditions like anxiety and depression can affect your mental health. If an employee is experiencing poor mental health, it adds an additional barrier to having a healthy relationship between them and the business.
Helping employees understand their mental health through training is beneficial for both sides. Employees will have the skills and confidence to openly discuss these issues with their employers. At the same time, employers can help them by providing them with resources and guiding them to professional help.
Overall, Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training will offer employers a better understanding of how to support employees experiencing poor mental health crises, which is a vital skill to have.
Group First Aid Training for Employees
In today’s fast-paced and technology-fueled workplaces, it is no wonder that many workers are feeling more stress and pressure now than ever. This is why employee wellness should be on top priority, as they are the most important assets in the company.
After all, happy employees mean a happy workplace which is equivalent to a productive and successful business. Ultimately, investing in your employee’s well-being will reap rewards for everyone.
To improve health and wellbeing in the workplace, have the right systems, policies, and training to support the employees.
First Aid Pro is expert at providing group first aid training for employees. We work with businesses and organisations across different industries to build customisable first aid solutions to build and achieve their health and wellbeing strategy.
Providing employees with mental health first aid training will help them adopt and maintain healthy behaviours.
Interested in a group first aid training for your employees? View our course page to find out more.
