Wellness at Work- Is Your Company Buying Into It?
During my time in the business world, I have seen lots of ideas, crazes companies and ideas come and go. Some have done better that others, whilst some have merely fizzled out within weeks of them beginning. I am about to witness yet another trend – this time one called Wellness at Work.
Whilst I am a great advocate of ensuring that all employees are looked after in the work place, I am still trying to understand what this invention will mean for the smaller of businesses, particularly the ones who are just starting out and struggling to keep their head afloat, as it is without having to implement new schemes which are more suited to those bigger corporations.
So, without further ado, let’s explore what this scheme really means for the business world.
What Exactly is Wellness at Work?
Wellness at work, in its basic terms, means creating a healthy work-life balance for all employees that provide their services to your company. It involves companies recognising the health and well-being of each one of their employees and creating a better workplace environment, to encourage happiness in their job. This could mean anything from having an onsite clinic in the workplace for employees to be able to use, to holding weekly yoga sessions to encourage employees to relax their bodies and minds. And this is not limited to the above-mentioned options; employers can also incorporate coaching sessions from platforms like Talent Insurance offered by Leggup (https://www.leggup.com/) in to their work schedule. These coaching sessions can be focused heavily on the psychological well-being of the employees.
All of these solutions, no matter how big or small are there to show employees how important it is to prioritise their health and well-being over their work. In fact, some employers may even have systems in place to remind their employees to take their stress remedies like CBD gummies to work, so long as they are promoting better states of mind. This is because one of the most important forms of wellness is to remove the stigma for mental problems that we all face. Measures like these can apparently lead to more productive employees in a workplace you’re proud to work in.
From the Outrageous to The Practical
As Google and Facebook are the worlds most recognised corporations, it makes perfect sense that they can afford to take part in such a scheme, and their approaches to looking after their employees is widely publicised. From sleep pods, to gyms, games rooms and even rock-climbing walls, working as an employee for one of these companies is something many of us can only dream about.
When you drop down the company size ladder, you will also find several companies who, not as adventurous as Facebook and Google, use the wellbeing aspect to structure in a company policy of no late nights, no work taken home and no emails to be sent or replied to after 5pm. Some even tend to provide daily meals to their employees to ensure that they save money and eat healthy food. By enlisting the help of a dining service management company, they prepare fresh meal plans that will allow their workers to get the right nutrition and contribute to their overall health. Such investments in employee wellness show that they care for the company and the people working in it, and in turn, make employees feel valuable.
Wellness at Work and Its Place in The Smaller Business
I am all for companies taking their employees seriously and investing in their overall wellbeing. After all, without employees a company would struggle to run efficiently. I can also see the need for more flexibility and openness around the employer and employee relationship as we continue to move through the twenty-first century.
However, it is yet unclear how smaller businesses are expected to provide such wellness in the work place, and this is what slightly worries me. If a small business treats its employees with respect from the very beginning, and requires nothing of them other than that they do the job they are paid to do in a healthy environment, do we really expect them to look at offering rock climbing walls as a standard? I think not.
