How workplace wellness can help improve your mental wellbeing
Today, employers are taking important measures to promote wellbeing in the workplace. These programmes aim to create a happier and healthier workforce by reducing stress, boosting mindfulness and improving productivity amongst team-members.
Here at Glandore we care about our member’s mental health and encourage their wellbeing through our workplace wellness programme. We believe workplace wellness, feeling happy and secure in your workplace, is important for maintaining positive mental health.
Workplace Wellness Programmes
Developing a comprehensive workplace wellness programme is the first step in ensuring your employees feel happy and confident in their roles. Programmes should focus on the areas of physical, financial and mental wellbeing.
Investing in workplace wellness has become a common trend for many modern businesses, big and small. More employers are coming to understand the importance of having a happy and healthy workforce. Workplace wellness is good for the bottom line; it can lead to reduced sick days, increased productivity and increased profitability.
Here at Glandore we have developed a comprehensive workplace wellness programme for all our members. Our programme focuses on three areas, “grow in life, grow in body and grow in mind.” Throughout the past year we have seen a substantial uptake in our members participating in our wellness programme, demonstrating how people are becoming aware of the importance of wellness in the workplace.
Mental Health Initiatives
Our standard 40-hour work week means most of us will spend the majority of our waking hours at work. Most of us also find it difficult to switch off once we leave the office and find it hard to fully relax as we let the stresses and strains of everyday life get on top of us. This is why it is important to take mental wellbeing into consideration when building your workplace wellness programme.
Promoting mental health wellbeing into your workplace wellness programme can be done through workshops, seminars or one-on-one chats away from the office. Mental Health Ireland works to promote positive mental health to individuals and communities across Ireland. They have recently launched a ‘Mind Your Mental Health’ workshop which is specifically designed to promote mental health wellbeing in the workplace. The training module, which can be a full day, half day or an hour and a half session, focuses on increasing mental health awareness and also equipping participants with the tools they need to look after their mental health.
Here at Glandore over the past number of months we have hosted a number of seminars aimed at helping our members manage their wellbeing and come up with ways to deal with difficulties they might be facing. ‘Managing stress through diet and lifestyle’ and ‘making productivity a habit’ were two of the seminars we hosted. Our members found these programmes useful and have said they would like to see more mental health initiatives such as a mindfulness programme and a work-life balance seminar in the future.
Healthy Body = Healthy Mind
We all know the phrase; a healthy body equals a healthy mind. Exercise has been proven to relieve stress levels and help improve mental wellbeing, but many of us find it difficult to get the time to fit it in. With busy work and home lives it can be difficult to squeeze in that morning jog or that post-work gym session. Including physical activities in your workplace wellness programme not only encourages and improves fitness but can also improve mental wellbeing.
Building physical activities into the workday is a way of adding fitness to your workplace wellness programme. These activities don’t have to be over strenuous either, as all staff have different levels of fitness. A lunchtime yoga or pilates class, an in-house gym room or even organising for the whole staff to take part in a local fun run can not only improve employee fitness but also employee mental wellbeing.
Here at Glandore we include a range of fitness initiatives in our workplace wellness programme as we know how beneficial they can be, for body and mind. Our members have been able to choose from a six-week pilates course, a six-week yoga course and a 0 – 5 kilometre running programme over the past number of months. All of these courses have been fully booked and proved popular among our members, demonstrating how important physical and mental wellbeing is to employees.