Top Ten Tips for Workplace Wellness

The term “workplace wellness” is more than just a buzzword. Good physical health and emotional wellness are essential to a productive and positive workplace. Here are some great ways you can look at improving wellness and morale in your own work environment.

What is Workplace Wellness?

Workplace wellness refers to initiatives and policies aimed at supporting healthy behaviour in the workplace. This could include exercise programmes, healthy eating promotions, or stress management initiatives.

In order to be successful, workplace wellness efforts need support from management and employees alike.

Ten Ideas for Improving Workplace Wellness

  1. Most importantly, take steps to maintain a healthy work-life balance, and look after yourself outside of work. Eat balanced meals, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. This will set you up to tackle the challenges of wellness at work with more energy and enthusiasm.
  2. Invest in a wearable health tracker to help you monitor your daily physical activity and fitness levels during the day. Encourage your colleagues to do the same, or ask management to consider subsidising wearable technology.
  3. Avoid the sugary soda and junk food snacks in the office vending machines. Ask your manager to consider replacing some (or all) of them with healthy, nutritional snacks instead.
  4. Get in touch with a local farmer or small business owner who can deliver healthy home-made sandwiches, salads or fresh produce to the office.
  5. Start publishing a “Workplace Wellness” newsletter. Ask your colleagues to contribute, with their own ideas, healthy recipes or fitness tips.
  6. Create some fun fitness challenges that your whole team can participate in, with an element of friendly competition and small, inexpensive prizes (like a healthy lunch voucher) for those who win.
  7. Make contact with local teachers who can host weekly or monthly wellness workshops in the office, such as yoga, meditation, relaxation and breathing techniques, etc.
  8. Ask management to add plants to the workspace. Research has shown that the right indoor plants will help to purify the air in the office. Plus they look great, and help to calm and uplift the mood of those around them.
  9. Look at ways to make the office workstations healthier. Standing workstations, balance balls and ergonomically designed chairs help to mitigate the effects of sitting at a computer all day.
  10. Make sure your company follows the legal guidelines for employee wellness, and always adhere to the safety precautions recommended (especially if you work in a hazardous environment).

A healthy workplace is a happy workplace. It’s in the best interests of everyone, from top management to the newest employees, to cultivate better workplace wellness.

 

Sources

Management of employee wellness in South Africa: Employer, service provider and union perspectives. Retrieved from: http://www.sajhrm.co.za/index.php/sajhrm/article/viewFile/305/313

121 Employee Wellness Program ideas for your office. Retrieved from: http://cyfn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/101-Employee-Wellness-Program-Ideas.pdf

Workplace wellness. Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_wellness