The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted everyone and has taken an apparent toll on holistic employee dimensions – physical, financial, mental wellness, and other wellbeing aspects. Even when post-COVID normalcy resumes, it is going to take a long time and a lot of effort from employees and employers for things to get back to the pre-COVID routine.
While employees have to deal with their anxiety and fear while getting into public places, employers face challenges planning the best back-to-workplace wellness strategy. Such stressful situations may only add to employee wellbeing, and employers must take all the required steps to support and boost holistic employee wellness.
Employers can implement well-planned corporate wellness programs with the right wellness challenges ideas to ensure employees take the right steps to improve their health and wellness. A well-designed wellness program platform can help in delivering the wellness challenges activities and the other features for employee engagement and workplace wellness.
In our previous blog, we talked about the 9 Key Employee Wellness Dimensions for Holistic Wellbeing.
In this blog, we talk about the different ways employers can support and address these 9 employee wellness dimensions –
1. Physical Wellbeing
- Assigning physical activity and exercise wellness challenge activities to keep the employees active and healthy.
- Include wellness challenges ideas like walking 10K steps daily, climbing stairs, etc.
- Encourage healthy eating habits with nutrition wellness challenges.
- Allow discussions and sharing recipes, tips, potlucks, or provide free healthy snacks, if at the workplace.
- Ensure proper hydration with workplace wellness challenge ideas to drink at least 10 glasses of water daily.
Make sure the wellness program platform is flexible and scalable to track all the step count, distance, calories eaten, calories burnt, water intake, macros count, and other parameters that indicate employee physical wellness.
2. Employee Mental Wellness
- Conduct workshops and expert consultation sessions for mental health and workplace wellness
- Provide employee wellness challenges with stress-management techniques and learn mindfulness
- Conduct on-site or virtual yoga, meditation, training, and counseling sessions
- Have your wellness program platform push out daily inspirational or motivational quotes
- Include vital tools to seek regular employee feedback to know their stress elements and address them while reducing the social stigma
3. Social Wellness
- If your employees are at the workplace, allocate a specific area for them to socialize and unwind from the hectic work
- If your employees are working remotely, conduct virtual meetings for them to have meaningful not-work-related conversations
- Organize potlucks or team lunches giving them space and time to communicate
- Conduct team wellness challenges to promote interaction that can foster better workplace relationships
4. Financial Wellbeing
- Offer the right employee benefits and perks like HSAs, FSAs, insurance, 401(K) plans, and other privileges to support employee financial wellbeing
- Conduct consultation sessions with financial experts and advisors to help the workforce make the right investments and decisions
- Provide cash rewards, premium discounts, and other incentives in exchange for the reward points earned through the employee wellness programs
- Offer student scholarships or educational loans to support employees who cannot afford their children’s education
- Encourage your employees with webinars and seminars to help them save and spend within their budget
5. Intellectual Wellness
- Set up a workplace library with different books for self-improvement, crosswords, puzzles, or profession-related books, to allow the workforce to develop their knowledge on extensive topics
- Email or provide in-print research articles or other important information that can help with employee wellbeing and workplace wellness
- Conduct quizzes, or other brainstorming sessions that encourage teamwork and allow brushing up their knowledge
- Conduct on-site or virtual workshops on various topics for complete skills development of the employees
6. Environmental Sustainability
- Set up the workplace such that it reflects the workplace culture and company’s values to protect the environment
- Ensure the workplace is sanitized regularly and keep sanitizers and disinfectants handy for the employees
- Replace all the old lights with LED or eco-friendly light bulbs
- Make sure the office appliances like ACs, power generators, pantry fridge or ovens, and other equipment are maintained and repaired regularly
- Provide ergonomic chairs and furniture that protect employee posture and are environment-friendly
7. Occupational Health and Wellness
- Recognize the efforts of the employees and appreciate their accomplishments
- Reward employees with incentives for their performance and achievements
- Offer corporate wellness programs with health assessments and biometric screenings for workplace wellness
- Seek employee feedback and opinions to make them feel valued and important at the company
- Create a positive workplace culture by offering flexible work schedules, remote working, paid vacations, and more
- Promote healthy and positive workplace behaviors and help them maintain the same
8. Cultural Wellbeing
- Encourage the HR managers to hire a diverse workforce
- Celebrate holidays and festivals relevant to the diverse workforce and encourage employee engagement
- Encourage volunteering activities and events that embrace the marginalized communities
- Conduct sessions for diversity training to create awareness and for the employees to address them thoughtfully
9. Spiritual Wellness
- Send articles to create awareness and educate the workforce about different spiritual beliefs
- Make sure there is no religion or spiritual belief-based discrimination at the workplace
- Conduct volunteering services or charity events to help the needy and poor
- Align the workplace culture and company values in line with the beliefs of the employees as a token of support
- Assign separate rooms at the workplace for the employees to pray, meditate, or relax
Addressing all the 8 different employee holistic wellbeing dimensions can be quite challenging to the employers, and overwhelming for the workforce. Robust corporate wellness programs can be very helpful in creating well-suited wellness challenges that focus on all the employee holistic wellbeing aspects.
A wellness program platform that is built with the latest corporate wellness technology will make it even easier to deliver the holistic wellness challenges ideas. Offering the wellbeing support and resources that your employees need will not only improve their health and wellness, but will also give them a sense of belonging, satisfaction, and loyalty towards the employers and the organization.