Employee Well-Being must be Top-of-Mind
Employee well-being is top of mind on many leaders’ brains in today’s world. Over the past year it has become a hot topic. Now more than ever it is important to focus on the well-being of your team members.
Their well-being doesn’t mean maximizing private healthcare benefits, health spending accounts, or encouraging the team to take sick days. Employee well-being is about the physical and mental health of your employees and their ability to perform at their best.
Health concerns have been on the top of our minds thanks to the pandemic. Well-being focus should be about how the company can ensure it is setting realistic and achievable performance expectations of the team. It is also meant to provide effective coaching. The team should be prepared for anything the job throws at them! When they are prepared, they’re less likely to experience work-related stress.
Employee well-being should be one of the main focuses for team leaders. When people are taken care of, they are better co-workers, employees, and friends.
Team members are more likely to perform at the top of their game when the well-being agenda has been encouraged and embedded in the workplace culture.
Your team spends at least 40 hours a week at work. Their job needs to be in an environment where physical and mental health is promoted. Wellness contributes to the success of the team as a whole.
In this blog post, we’ll be sharing some ways employee well-being can be boosted.
Try a 30 day fitness challenge to improve employee well-being
Get your well-being initiative started with a fitness challenge. The spirit of friendly competition will be present during this time!
Create a common goal for the entire group. For example, over the course of the month, encourage your team to walk 500,000 steps combined. Individual goals could be getting at least 10,000 steps per day. Encourage your team to take breaks together to get their steps in!
Offer prizes as well. Offer something small for the step leader of the week and have a team party at the end of the challenge if the goal is met!
The fitness challenge can be whatever you want it to be. Why not try biking to work for a month? See how many miles your team can reach! It doesn’t cost very much to start a fitness challenge! So get moving, bond with your team, and have fun.
Give the team freedom to make their own goals
As a leader, if you allow your employees to set their own goals, they could be more motivated and fulfilled if they can come up with their own strategy to accomplish their objectives. According to a study, high levels of workplace independence correlates to feelings of satisfaction on the job. Workplace autonomy umbrellas a wide range including providing freedom to contribute to the team creatively as well as setting goals.
Provide your team with a structured plan to ensure the participants get something out of this process. Create guidelines and strategic objectives for the team members but they should have free range to create a plan of action to achieve the goal. Follow up with their progress in monthly check-ins on where they stand with their goals. This promotes accountability. You’ll also be able to understand if they need assistance or another planning session with their goals.
The team should also be given the tools needed to successfully achieve what they want to. A sense of purpose will fulfill them in the worplace.
Allow Learning and Progressing
Employees crave knowledge and progress. No one wants to feel as though they’re stuck in a dead-end job.
As a leader, you should aid in their personal development to ensure your team is growing and learning. For example, host training sessions in-house, encourage your team to sign up for webinars, or purchase tickets for your team to head to off-site training sessions or conferences.
Another key part of your team’s personal development is to provide them with a personal development plan. In other words, have your team develop their goals and meet with them one on one to discuss what they’ve written down. Work with them to understand their goals and create a path to success. Have monthly check-ins with the team to keep them accountable.
To create a sense of unity with the team, you could host a meeting where team members share their goals with one another. This could lead to more collaboration and inspiration among employees.
Mental health advocacy to enhance employee well-being
Depression and anxiety are some of the most common mental illnesses in Canada.
It is not uncommon to find a few members of your team are suffering from mental health disorders. These illnesses often go untreated due to fear of judgment, lack of resources, or they just don’t know what to do. This will have an impact on their well-being and their engagement in the workplace as well.
Show your team you are putting their needs first. For instance, offer a mental health awareness program for them, encourage your team to take a look through their benefits package and take advantage of benefits regarding therapy or counselling sessions. This could be a push in the right direction that someone needs.
Keep an open-door policy as well. Above all, if your team needs someone to talk to, let them know your office is a safe space for them to vent or get their thoughts off their chest.
An employee well-being program should fit the needs of your team and company. It is important to be clear about the benefits your team will experience with a well-being program.
In conclusion, the program should not stay stagnant. It should evolve and change as the needs of the people it services changes. To gage the success of the program, see how your team participates. If their engagement is down, maybe it’s time to switch it up.
What benefits has your employee well-being program brought to your workplace? How are you making well-being a priority? Leave us a comment!
At NexLevel, we’re experts in building healthy organizations through cohesive teams and engaged employees. We will help you and your employees become the high-performance team you’ve always wanted to be by focusing on collaboration, creativity, culture, and connection. Let’s Connect
