5 practices that actually have an impact on employee wellbeing

(Photo by Charanjeet Dhiman on Unsplash)

We spend most of our awake time at the workplace — so what happens there has a significant impact on our physical and mental health.

More and more companies are becoming increasingly aware of this and invest in employee wellbeing programs. This is great news to everyone.

The issue is most of their initiatives rely around things that have a very limited impact:

• Discounted/paid gym subscriptions — these have become part of the standard benefits package and people have become immune to the effect of them. Chances are the people who actually use these benefits would have gone to the gym anyways — and those who don’t have a good relationship with movement will continue to be resistant to the idea.
• Theoretical presentations on various health topics — again, this is a really neat idea and it does have some effect on raising awareness — but what people need most is not information, but support in breaking patterns of behaviour. They need a complex intervention that addresses triggers and incentives of unhelpful habits, realigns motivations and goals, builds systems of action based on self awareness and responsibility.
• Fruits in the office — Are fruits healthier than cakes and chips? Definitely. Are they also a source of sugars? Definitely! A better replacement would be a smoothie or salad bar that’s filled with greens, high quality fats and protein.

There’s an alternative approach to wellbeing. One that seems far less exciting, but it is actually more impactful. One that’s focused on building long term healthy habits. If you want to take this approach to employee wellbeing, here are 5 levers to use:

1. Sustainable goals and schedules. We all know the social media posts about the team who is working overtime due to being understaffed and how, instead of receiving another team member or a diminished workload, they get a stress management workshop. This is the number 1 sources of disease in companies — and realistic estimation of workload and capability is something companies are typically really bad about.
2. Mature and empathic leadership — 70% of employees’ experience at work is determined by the quality of their relationship with the manager. A good manager can balance your workload, can unlock resources and potential, can support your growth and can help you maintain work life balance. A bad manager can have the opposite effect.
3. Protected focus time. Multitasking and too much time spent in meetings not only decrease performance — they also, over time, weaken our ability to pay attention and keep our brain in a state of fight or flight. Enable practices that set healthy boundaries around meeting time and switching between project work/chat/email/other dashboards of information.
4. Raising awareness on mental health. Post COVID, I have noticed a surge in the number of managers reaching out to me with issues of mental health — for themselves and their team members. Anxiety, depression, insomnia and other afflictions are becoming more prevalent as a result of the many flaws of our way of living and our societal norms. Knowing how to stop them and where to go for help is essential. Moreover, one perk that companies are starting to offer is a partial or complete coverage of therapy costs.
5. Instilling healthy habits at work. Imagine what would happen if people had two company-reinforced breaks of 10 minutes everyday — breaks where they have to step away from their laptops and get some light movement. Imagine what would happen if all leadership was the first to promote mindfulness practices, stretches or walks during those times. Imagine not only how much healthier people would feel, but also how much of an increased probability of them continuing those practices at home you would nurture.

There is no silver bullet to impactful wellbeing initiatives. Managing to actually have an impact on the lives of employees takes a mix of interventions — from theoretical presentations to coaching to offering healthier alternatives at the office — and a mix of topics, from sports to healthy eating to emotional management.

Learn from doing — as long as you and the company you work for operate from a genuine commitment to support employees to lead better lives, you will definitely have the motivation to find the solutions that work for you!