Workplace Wellbeing Day: How To Create a Healthy Workplace

On Workplace Wellbeing Day many of our inboxes and social media feeds will be filled with businesses telling us what they are doing for their employees for the day. However, while this is better than doing nothing at all, for many it could be the start and end of their employee wellness initiatives for the year.

Workplace Wellbeing Day should be an anchor to rebalance and refocus on supports that will benefit employees as part of a long-term culture of wellbeing within your organisation. With that in mind, we have put together some guidance and suggestions for achieving a sustainable, healthy workplace.

What Does a Healthy Workplace Look Like?

It might seem like a complicated task to ascertain whether a workplace is ‘healthy’ from the outside, but as an employer it is very simple. It comes down to whether your employees are engaged; whether they are enthusiastic about projects, forthcoming with new ideas or suggestions, and if they are energetic in meetings. Chances are if your team are low-energy, don’t bother suggesting new ideas, or generally don’t seem satisfied – you have some work to do around Workplace Wellbeing.

How Can You Create a Healthy Workplace?

1. Company Culture

While many suggestions to improve Workplace Wellbeing require more budget and manpower, the most important piece is very cost-effective. Day-to-Day relations within your business are the foundation of a healthy workplace. Clear communication with employees, and building a culture of trust will make an enormous impact. If your employee’s don’t feel free to make mistakes and learn from them, or don’t believe that their input is heard, at some point they will stop bringing their most interesting ideas to the table – which is a loss for any business.

Equally, your most creative team members will find themselves holding back if they find they are being micro-managed. Comparatively, if they are allowed to feel ownership of projects (however big or small), they will be more invested in the success of those projects and will feel their efforts are valued.

Finally, managing expectations is crucial. If your team are working to 100% capacity just accomplishing their daily tasks, it will leave no room for them to ideate, innovate or improve. If efforts are spread thinly across too many tasks, it stands to reason that the quality of work will suffer as a result. Managing expectations and workloads can mean your employees are free to think of the ideas that will elevate your business.

2. Supportive Policies

Actions always speak louder than words, therefore having policies that reflect your culture will affirm to your team that you value and trust them – not just as employees but as human beings.

Ensuring all managers are trained in mental health first aid, as well as conflict resolution, can have a substantial (sometimes life-saving) effect;  this will allow them to respond quickly and appropriately should a team member be going through a crisis.

Additionally, ‘flexitime’ models that allow your team flexibility with their hours (perhaps working from 10am – 6pm rather that 9am – 5pm) show not only that you trust them, but also that you understand one size does not fit all.

Other obvious policies and benefits like substantial paid sick leave, learning and development stipends, decent maternity and paternity cover, as well as hybrid working options are the most concrete ways of showing you recognise your team as human beings first, and employees second.

3. Workplace Wellbeing Programme

Lastly, prioritising an ongoing employee wellbeing programme of events and workshops can be enormously beneficial to your team – but one meditation session does not a wellbeing programme make! Looking at this holistically is crucial, covering mental and physical health as well as financial wellbeing, business advisory and social events.

While larger businesses may have whole teams dedicated to managing an employee wellbeing programme, for smaller businesses it can be a huge undertaking requiring both manpower and budget. Equally, if an international organisation is just building their presence in a region, they might not have a network of facilitators in place.

At Glandore, we include a year-long wellness programme of 60+ events and initiatives  within our membership because, regardless of scale or stage of development, we know how important employee wellbeing is to company success.

Providing Yoga, Pilates or some form of physical exercise as well as mental health focused training around resilience and stress management is a great start, but you can really take care of employees by considering options like on-site massage, health checks, as well as dental and physio consultations. In addition, sessions that look at financial planning, interpersonal guidance and topics related to home-life are hugely important.

What Are the Benefits to Business?

Any initiative that promotes wellbeing will have a positive impact on society as a whole, but in this case, the benefits to business (and the bottom line) are enormous.

It seems like the most obvious thing in the world, but happy teams do better work. Having a genuine focus on employee wellbeing is proven to increase productivity; if your team have more energy and feel empowered in the workplace, it’s not hard to see how quality (and quantity) of work would skyrocket.

Companies who take care of their teams also see decreased absenteeism as employee’s are less likely to become physically unwell or suffer burnout.

Finally, it’s no surprise that businesses who embed a holistic culture of wellbeing, who support their teams both as employees and as human beings, are the most effective at retaining and attracting employees. Why wouldn’t you want to work for a company that makes you feel valued, empowered and satisfied?

If you want to learn more about Glandore’s Wellbeing Programme and how it can help your business thrive, speak to our team today.

If you’d like to read more of our blogs about wellness and office culture, click here.