MAKE WELLNESS A PILLAR OF CORPORATE CULTURE
Beginning a new job or internship can be an exciting and stressful time. Your employee is eager to prove themselves to their colleagues and managers and excited to learn new skills. While it’s good that they’re focused on their professional goals and responsibilities, it’s important to support them outside of the office, too.
I’ve been a fitness nut all my life. I attribute a lot of my success as an entrepreneur to the dedication I have made in improving my mind and body every day. With that said, when I started consulting for companies, I quickly became overwhelmed. As business picked up, my health went down along with my energy and motivation. I was making money, but I was more depressed than I had ever been before. It was a hard lesson to learn, but I realized that no amount of money was worth sacrificing my wellness.
But now is a time when health is being made a larger priority. Healthy bodies and minds go hand in hand with happiness and productivity—both highly sought after characteristics in the workplace. Today’s companies, ranging from startups to Fortune 500s, are even introducing comprehensive corporate wellness programs to make health a pillar of corporate culture. Colleagues are exercising, juicing and even meditating together in the office.
From the nap rooms in Zappos’ Las Vegas campus to the bike-share programs at Facebook, today’s organizations are pulling out all the stops to ensure that their employees remain healthy and happy. Speaking to Forbes contributor Kevin Harrington in 2015, Dr. Roger Sahoury, a champion of corporate health, claimed that when individuals recognize the efforts their employers are taking in ensuring their health, it encourages them to work harder at their jobs.
Make wellness a priority in your company, and make sure you communicate that to potential hires. Additionally, you want to ensure you have these two healthy foundations as part of your efforts.
Boundaries
A 24/7, always-on lifestyle is just not sustainable. Too often, employees feel the need to work to the point of exhaustion day in and day out. But this attitude actually doesn’t help anyone. The term “burnout” was first used in the 1970s and since then has become an increasing problem plaguing American work culture. Over the past few years, burnout rates have become such a problem that millions of Americans feel there is no other solution but to leave their jobs.
According to the Association for Physiological Science, millions in the American workforce elected to resign in 2014 simply over burnout. Burnout is not inevitable, however. Help your team set themselves up for a long and healthy career by making supporting them in their efforts to set boundaries between their work responsibilities and their personal lives.
People need to leave the office at a reasonable hour, set blackout times in which their teams knows they won’t be looking at emails (except in emergency scenarios), and make self-care a priority. Don’t be afraid to have frank conversations about typical working hours, weekend emailing policies, and even how most employees spend their lunch break. These issues may seem somewhat trivial, but they offer significant insight into what’s expected in your company.
Team Bonding
Building strong relationships with the people they work alongside can be the distinguishing factor in how people feel about their jobs and how they approach their work. Spending time cultivating relationships with team members and managers sets everyone up for success. Encourage these types of interactions in your workplace.
In a recent study by the Queen’s School of Business and Gallup Organization, employees who felt disengaged reported lower productivity and more errors. Spending time with coworkers outside of meetings and office hours is beneficial to everyone. But strong relationships don’t just happen overnight—they have to be nourished.
You might set up an initiative to pair young professionals and/or new hires with mentors or allow such peer-mentoring to take place in group settings. You don’t need elaborate weekly outings. Simple things such as outdoor team lunches and group yoga classes are key signs that your corporate culture values relationships and overall wellbeing.
Maybe your company is currently lagging behind on the wellness initiatives. You can start small and do things every day to foster strong bonds and encourage healthy habits among your teammates, such as eating lunch away from your desk, going for daily walks, organizing after-work meetups, or setting up daily meditation challenges for your entire team.
It’s up to you to make wellness an important part of your work culture.