Your organization may hold its head high on being an excellent employer, however, even if you have the best intentions, there are indirect instances where certain practices can harm your employees’ well-being. Working conditions and obligations are a significant source of stress for many people. Experts believe that companies must prioritize their employees’ well-being and health, and focusing on these factors has resulted in a positive correlation in employee morale, productivity, and retention.
This article will break down what employee well-being is and give you 10 ways to improve and encourage a healthy environment and behaviors for your staff. Improving employee well-being should top the priority list of an organization as your people are your number one asset.
What is Employee Health & Wellness?
Employee wellness is a larger concept that includes employee health however, many professions and businesses use them interchangeably.
Employee well-being has been a Human Resources term in recent decades, with many professionals discussing the topic. It revolves around how your employee feels about all functions of their job as well as work-life balance. This encompasses their personal life, health, relationships, finances, and functions of their job.
Employee health, in this sense, refers to employees’ immediate health. However, employee well-being is more than a person’s physical health. It also includes an employee’s emotional and mental health. Taking these factors into consideration will help you design a system that allows your employees to thrive and produce for your organization, while also aiding to the positive growth of their physical and mental well-being.
10 Ways to Improve Your Employees’ Health and Well-Being
Have a Plan
The first and most important stage is creating a plan to cultivate workplace well-being. This strategy should clearly define what you want to achieve, how you intend to achieve it, who will be accountable for implementing these tactics, as well as a timeline for implementation and tracking progress. You may also survey or facilitate meetings to examine and hear from your staff directly on how they feel about their workplace well-being. Ensure that the goals are striving to hit will help your company and your employees’ quality of life inside and outside of the workplace.
Establish a Welcoming Work Environment
The well-being of your employees may be significantly impacted by a few purposeful direct actions in employee physical space. For instance, indoor plants increase ventilation in the office by releasing oxygen into the air and absorbing carbon dioxide. According to research, workplace air quality improvements can boost employee productivity by up to 11%. Additionally exposing your staff to natural light and enabling them to make healthy choices around the office has also been known to drastically increase staff members’ efficiency.
Flexible Scheduling
The ability to focus on health-related problems is one of the most underestimated yet critically significant aspects of employee well-being. Both hourly and paid employees are busier than ever, leaving minimal time to focus on exercise, food, or exploring their health-related concerns. Providing your employees with the ability to work a more flexible schedule might give them the necessary wiggle room they need to spend time focusing on their well-being on their own.
Give Employees More Control Over Their Work
Having minimal control over how work is done has been related to lower mental health and greater incidents of heart disease. Additionally, the combination of high work demands and limited job management dramatically raises the risk of diabetes and death from cardiovascular causes. Increasing an employee’s autonomy and enabling them to perform tasks and make decisions that they are in full control of can have a significant impact on an employee’s well-being.
Personal Development Opportunities
Personal development is a fantastic way for employees to increase their potential, talent, and income. It is a continuous process that doesn’t conclude with a course, book, or lecture and it allows employees to take full control of themselves. Personal development is a continuous opportunity to gain self-awareness and enable your team members to grow. Providing personal development workshops, lectures, book clubs, activities, and additional resources can help your employees grow aspects of themselves that increase their perception of themselves while also allowing them to develop hard skills to succeed at work.
Team Relationships
Everyone wants their employees to get along, and no one expects them to be best friends. To promote healthy working relationships, consider adopting team-building activities, lunches and nights out, casual meetings, interdepartmental competitions, and other ways that you can have your employees interact unrelated to work.
When employees are comfortable with each other, they are more likely to be open to sharing their thoughts and opinions with their coworkers and contributing to a pleasant and social work atmosphere. Therefore, a healthy team relationship is important to strive towards. Therefore to improve your employees’ well-being, you should encourage creating a healthy relationship with their team.
Employee Exercise Competitions
Humans are naturally competitive, and businesses can benefit from this characteristic to increase employee well-being and health. Creating employee exercise challenges allows groups of employees to get involved, work together, and compete against one another in a fun environment. You can design several challenge stages for different fitness levels, well-being goals, health and mobility levels, and more. You can track employee’s progress and also set group goals for bigger rewards to be earned.
Employee Appreciation and Awards
Employees want to be appreciated for their efforts, and this acknowledgment can go a significantly long way. Appreciation doesn’t necessarily have to come in money or expensive bonuses. It can even take the form of compliments, a simple “thank you,” or public praise to a certain employee who has made major contributions to a team. Employee recognition is directly correlated to improved job happiness, productivity, and efficiency on the job.
Mindfulness Meditation
Physical health and exercise are not the only aspects of employee well-being. It also has to do with mental wellness. One of the most effective methods to improve your employees’ mental health is to teach and practice mindfulness – the practice of living in the present moment rather than the past or the future.
You can combine mindfulness training with various smartphone apps, ranging from meditation-focused apps to all-around health-related apps containing mindfulness and breathing activities. A more grounded way of life can help your employees reduce stress, and improve their feeling of calmness and autonomy, which can boost their working productivity.
Allow Remote Working Days
Allowing your employees to work from home or an outside location (such as a coffee shop, park, or at home) one day per week can have drastic effects on their quality of life and attitude towards you as an employer. This remote workday can allow for more transparent communication between you and your staff member, and the change of scenery can evoke new thoughts and ideas. Furthermore, this freedom communicates that you trust your staff to be self-directed, which leads to their increased emotional well-being and engagement.
Conclusion
Be it a small business or a large organization, satisfied employees are more creative and more likely to stay with a company long-term. Constantly improving and working to cultivate positive employee-well being should be something you are always focused on as an employer.
The more you improve your employees’ well-being, the more likely it is that you will achieve your overall organizational goals.
You can begin to improve your employees’ well-being by discovering what they truly want and talking with them directly. Many of these techniques are simple and inexpensive, such as making staff feel included, soliciting feedback, and acknowledging their accomplishments. Taking these points into consideration and making changes in how you think about and interact with your staff will have a positive impact on your organization as a whole.
