The term ‘wellness’ is used a lot these days, especially in corporate environments. You will hear this word in the media, in insurance documents and within the HR departments of big companies, but what does it really mean?
Many of us have now read up more on how wellness in the workplace is an important thing and we now understand that employers can play a strong and very positive role in the wellbeing of their employees.
It is very easy for employers to get a bit tangled up in the wellness programme procedure, however, instructing employees to participate in specific programmes and fill in certain health assessments, without having a clear idea of what they hope to achieve from the programme itself.
This kind of surface approach tends to produce middling results at best, as it narrows the focus of wellness to what becomes by and large a simple case of nagging. This kind of programme fails to realise that the best way to motivate employees and change habits in the long term is through company-wide wellness programmes that engage employees fully and actually support them as they make serious lifestyle changes towards healthy behaviour, rather than simply lecturing them on how they ought to be behaving.
This is important at a time when around 52 percent of Americans surveyed recently admitted to being disengaged at work, whilst only 18 percent claimed to be actively engaged in their job.
To fix this, a culture-first mentality must be created in the workplace, where productive employees are created by focusing on their quality of life in every possible sense, including work-life balance, social, spiritual and financial wellbeing and even physical and mental health. Employers should care truly about their employees and aim to be a supportive part of their lives in a holistic sense.