how employee wellness can improve your Company Culture
A positive worksite culture can be fundamental to your staff's physical, emotional, and mental well-being.
Building a Culture of Health!
A workplace with a good culture should understand engagement; wellness is an integral piece of that puzzle. When your employees' health is a priority, your workplace becomes more efficient and productive. The office becomes a place that creates a life-work balance and respects the employees' time, talents, families, and lives of those working there.
While many companies will use the term "wellness program" to recruit talented employees, that should not be where it ends. Instead, creating a culture that implements and values wellness day in and day out is essential to retaining top talent and reducing sick days and healthcare costs.
Why a "Wellness Program" Isn’t Enough?
Many companies host a health screening or offer a one-off service, calling it a wellness program. Although we encourage these to be a part of your initiative, they cannot be a stand-alone workplace wellness program. If you want employees to be active and motivated to make positive health choices, you must create an environment that supports and rewards those valuable behaviors. All too often, companies will have a health fair and then turn around and offer free donuts or pizza. Instead, ensure that every element of your office is working to provide that strong foundation to develop and reinforce healthy habits, creating a culture of wellness verse a wellness program.
We're sure you've heard the claim that "wellness programs don't work." We can wholeheartedly agree that a wellness program will only work if you have the culture of wellness to support it. Focus on offering health initiatives based on behavioral change practices that can adapt to one’s lifestyle.
A lot of wellness companies are focused entirely on the numbers. While it's an essential benchmark for beginning and monitoring your program, your employees are more than just a number. Focusing on employees' mental, emotional, and social health would be best. Many physical illnesses are caused or elevated by emotional and mental factors like stress, depression, anger, and anxiety. Building a multidimensional wellness program with a culture to back it will benefit all aspects of your employee's well-being.
Establishing a wellness culture will strengthen participation in your program and health initiatives. Employees will be encouraged to change, and leaders will be engaged in your wellness programs efforts. Employees will only believe their health and happiness are a company priority with a supportive culture and environment.
How do you do this? First, you need a plan of action! Design a mission statement, set goals, create a strong marketing and communication plan, and have a multidimensional approach to launch a wellness program that aligns with the company and its culture. Or better yet, let Movement 1st Wellness do it for you!
Are you Ready to Make the Change?
Employee well-being can only thrive with a supportive culture. Why? Because a company's culture sets the foundation for employee health, happiness, and success.
Companies with a wellness culture make employee wellness fun, interactive, and part of the day-to-day life of employees. When employees work for a company that embraces wellness through all areas of the organization, they will be more likely to practice healthy habits throughout the workday and prioritize their physical and mental health.
Need help creating a culture of wellness? You needed an easy-to-manage online wellness platform where employees can make authentic connections, create wellness goals and participate in team activities — while delivering actionable insights. Powered by data science and backed by 25 years of academic research, our platform is built using cognitive behavioral science, game theory, and behavioral economics to empower lasting behavior change.
““Using this wellness platform has made our wellness program so much easier to manage. On-going collaboration offers us many creative ideas for activities and monthly challenges, so as a result, our wellness program engagement rates have doubled. Plus, the platform’s automation tools free up our team to focus on the responsibilities of our business.”
CHRO at Knowledge Services
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