Workplace wellness has become a corporate buzz word but what does it really entail and who is responsible for implementing it?

Workplace wellness defined

Workplace wellness is commonly defined as any workplace health promotion activity or organisational policy designed to support healthy behaviour in the workplace and to improve health outcomes. It needs the positive support of both the individual employee as well as the management team to be successfully implemented.

What you can do to promote workplace wellness

  1. Take control of your own health issues, for example eat well, especially breakfast, sleep well, watch your weight and exercise.
  2. Ask your manager to stock the vending machine at work with healthy, nutritional snacks and mini meals and to remove all soda and sugar-laden drinks.
  3. Team up with a local farmer or organisation who can deliver healthy home-made sandwiches filled with organically grown salad greens and veggies and organically grown fruit and nuts.
  4. Publish a workplace wellness newsletter. Ask employees to contribute and send in their own healthy eating plans and recipes.
  5. Ask management to sponsor a talk or demo by a healthy eating and cooking expert.
  6. Highlight the health benefits of fitness. Ask management to subsidise wearable technology such as FitBit that helps people track their daily physical activities and fitness levels.
  7. Ask management to subsidise a portion of the costs of joining a gym as part of its initiative to help employees (and management) get fit and lose weight.
  8. Create some fun, fitness challenges such as who can do most push-ups, climb most stairs, walk, run or bike most kilometres, etc.
  9. Post a note near the lifts and remind people of the fitness benefits of climbing the stairs instead.
  10. Ask management to hire an office masseuse to offer free neck and shoulder massages to stressed-out employees. Also, teach employees simple breathing and relaxation techniques.
  11. Ask the musicians at your company to bring their instruments to work and jam together during the lunch break. Music is a wonderful stress breaker and if you can move outdoors you will also reap the free benefits of sunshine (vitamin D) and fresh air.
  12. Create some competitions with sponsored gift card rewards for the person who smiled most during the week, helped someone in need, pacified the boss, manager or angry client best, got through a difficult assignment without cracking up, etc.
  13. Ask management to incorporate plants into the working space. Research has shown that plants not only help clean the air we breathe but they also calm, pacify and help lift mood.
  14. Ask employees to add their own plants and to personalise their working spaces with personal items such as family photos, etc.
  15. Ask management to hire an ergonomics expert to investigate office workstations and recommend ergonomically safe equipment. Standing workstations, some incorporating treadmills and exercise bikes, will help minimise the very many negative health outcomes of being seated all day.
  16. Make sure your company adheres to the legal imperatives for employee wellness stipulated in the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Labour Relations Act (LRA) and general labour relations.
  17. Always adhere to the safety precautions recommended if you work in dangerous environments.
  18. Ask management set aside an hour or so one day of the week or month to gather as a company for an informal (sponsored) lunch and learn session. Allow employees and managers to discuss personal and corporate hints to be more effective and productive, to share goals and triumphs and to highlight and acknowledge colleagues’ work well done.
  19. Ask management to subsidise ongoing education and training, self-development and personal improvement of all employees.
  20. Don’t let your workload overwhelm you. Set small goals and reward yourself once you have achieved them.

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