In this COVID-19 pandemic day and age of digital workplaces, activists, and mental health awareness, employers can no longer get away with offering medical insurance and complying with safety regulations. Even nowadays, an employee desire complete workplace wellness support from the employer.
Companies are exploring new avenues to ensure high employee productivity, such as psychological safety and the introduction of what we now know as wellness programs.
Workplace wellness is any workplace health promotion activity or organizational policy to encourage employees to engage in healthy behaviors and improve their health outcomes.
Workplace wellness is the incorporation of programs such as;
- On-site fitness facilities
- Health education and fairs in the workplace
- Yoga and meditation studios
- On-site psychotherapists
- Stress management programs
- Team building exercises
- On-site kitchens and healthy foods options
- Financial and other incentives
- Free screening programs
- Smoking cessation programs
What comes to mind when you read or hear about workplace wellness? Google.
Google headquarters has been the benchmark for workplace wellness, including cereal bars, sleeping pods, meditation areas, and colorful play areas.
Almost all companies in and outside the united states have implemented workplace wellness programs with the ultimate goal of improving the holistic wellbeing of their employees and shift the focus from surviving employees to thriving ones.
Workplace wellness programs include;
Mental health benefits
The pandemic has increased stress and anxiety both at work and at home.
The current work culture has seen an increase in younger employees, particularly millennial and Gen z.
This particular group of employees is known to keep employers on their toes by recommending mental health work policies that can work both in the office and at home for those working at home.
These policies are meant to deal with issues such as loneliness, depression, and anxiety.
Mental health benefits include but are not limited to;
- In house professional psychologists
- Mental health coaches
Prevention focused programs
Rather than offering benefits such as health insurance, which is also very important, most employers and organizations focus on implementing policies for prevention.
This can be done by;
- Providing free checkups and immunizations.
- Providing free checkups and immunizations.
- Providing free checkups and immunizations.
- Providing free checkups and immunizations.
Preventive programs do not have to be medical; regular financial planning workshops should be organized by organizations to teach employees about financial wellness.
Prevention programs result in well-rounded, physically, mentally, and financially ergo happy employees.
Onsite fitness centers
Some companies justify spending on Olympic-sized fitness gyms and tracks to motivate their employees.
This trendy type of wellness program encourages retention and recruitment of healthy employees. Who doesn’t want an all-expense-paid fitness center?
Provision of transit
Most companies provide their employees with transit options that make their lives easier, such as uberpool, buses, riding bicycles.
Facebook headquarters in Palo alto offers their employees bikes to ride around campus.
This type of workplace wellness brings in employees who are conscious about the conservation of the environment by keeping their carbon footprint at a minimum.
The above is just a mere scratch of the surface of the iceberg that is workplace wellness.
From what you can read, workplace wellness has and is healing the workplace.
Some amazing result and status from those who already tried wellness programs in workplace:
- According to the Society for Human Resource Management, around 75% of employers in the
USA offer their employees some type of wellness program.
The benefits for employers in offering one is that it increases productivity, improves workplace
culture, can reduce absences. - Statistics from the ITA Group reveal that workplace wellness programs can result in 28% less
sick days and 26% less health costs.
Benefit for employer- 87% of employees consider a company’s health and wellness offerings
when choosing to work for a company.
Welcome to the site. This post is written by TheWellnessToday (TWT) author.
