Having a focus on health and wellbeing is becoming necessary in a majority of industries, both in terms of managing human resources and increasing the long term sustainability of a business.
Research shows that if employees are well looked after from a well-being perspective, staff turnover goes down and efficiency goes up. Here are some of the areas that you can focus on in 2020 to ensure your business is doing its bit to provide good health and wellbeing processes to your employees.
Make sure you have a holistic culture that promotes health and wellbeing
Current thinking in many different areas of health and safety focus on the importance of culture in changing behaviour. The pervasive nature of culture means if it can be influenced it can have a big impact on what you are trying to do within an organisation.
From the perspective of health and wellbeing, the overall workplace culture can have a big impact on how people treat their work and their bodies. In industries where overworking and burnout are encouraged it can lead to an overall poor diet, high stress and a lack of proper work breaks.
One of the first steps many take in addressing the issue of a poor workplace culture is opening up discussion on how to improve it. This can be done by allocating time for ‘safety talks’ at regular stand-up meetings and more formal discussions. When the issues have been unrooted you can then start to develop the facilitators of good wellbeing within the workplace.
Put in place the facilitators of good wellbeing
Large scale changes cannot be enacted without a series of small-scale changes. This rings particularly true for increasing the well-being of your employees. Here are some of the facilitators of good health you can put in place to help your workers.
- Introduce standing desks (which are good for posture and productivity)
- Encourage workers to take regular screen breaks
- Encourage employees to take up hobbies or sports which help support mental health
- Consider offering exercise classes, such as yoga or pilates, in the workplace a few days a week
- Facilitate and encourage social activities to help build friendships
- Help employees with their personal development and training
- Create opportunities for remote working days and periods
These are just some of the changes you can put in place to help create a healthier working environment for your employees. However, making these facility improvements will only be worthwhile if there is a good uptake of people. To do this you have to reach all people within an organisation.
Women may exercise differently to men for example. Try to offer a variation of advice and resources this blog www.spikesandheels.com has some great examples of specific female-orientated information
Try and reach all sectors of people within the business
Getting as many people on board for your strive for good health and wellbeing is crucial if you are to create change on a scale that will be worthwhile for the whole organisation. Try and not to put in place a one size fits all policy, this could alienate people and cause many to become disenfranchised with the well-being drive. Instead, try and encourage people to take up activities and practices they feel suit them and are achievable within their method of working.
Having the opportunity for constant iterative feedback will also help you figure out what people want, which can then spur new ideas on how you can improve the overall process.
Incorporate all activities into a health and wellbeing strategy
Part of the reason many businesses fail to get their health and well-being drive off the ground is the fact that they do not put all actions into an overall strategy. Developing one requires that you outline your holistic vision for the project. From this, you can define budgets, responsibilities, and performance metrics.
Having a strategy in place will help you keep your health and wellbeing venture on track and having one in place will also help in getting C-level decision-makers on board with the project.
