The call to encourage remote working options was on the rise for quite a few years, and with the rise in the corporate wellness programs, remote working and flexible working hours have become an integral part of the employeeand workplace wellness policies. However, with the recent COVID-19 pandemic causing a global fear, with social distancing being advocated as a possible solution to decrease the intensity of spreading the virus, many organizations across the globe have asked their employees to work from home, while ensuring proper employee engagement and productivity.
Although it may sound relieving to many, the anxiousness among the employees is quite apparent as they juggle between multiple thoughts of staying safe, to keep their family safe, get their household chores done, and have their workplace tasks done on time. With going out of homes being restricted, many people are worried about how they can maintain their healthy habits by just staying at home.
Luckily, there are quite a few approaches that focus primarily on maintaining healthy lifestyle habits, offering many wellness benefits, thus improving employee health.
In this blog, we talk about a few proven ways that improve employee engagement and holistic wellness, even during the lockdown period.
Physical Health and Wellness Benefits
With the lockdown imposing constraints on outdoor movement, the regular physical activities of the employees like going for a brisk walk, riding the bike, going to the gym, or even commuting to the workplace, has come to a sudden halt, with the employees not getting their daily quota of body movement or step count.
Encourage your employees to take a walk in their corridors or porch while maintaining social distancing, use the stairs instead of the elevator, or ride their bike around the parking or nearby without breaking the rules, while grabbing the much-needed Vitamin D to boost immunity. If the climate or the surroundings do not allow going out, open the windows to allow sunlight and fresh air, and get the body moving by dancing, yoga, simple exercises at home like squats, planks, and lunges, or even cleaning the home.
Nutrition and Health Benefits
Staying all day at home makes it really easy to binge on junk food. Employees must make healthy choices and consume nutritious foods that promote good health and avoid falling ill. Encourage healthy snacking. Have your employees share their daily menu, recipes, and tips with each other, inspiring others also to follow them and make healthy diet plans. If needed, you can also start with your Nutrition wellness challenges, which the employees can follow at home.
Mental Wellness
The stress about the coronavirus, responsibilities at home with everyone around during the lockdown, and completing tasks on time can get to the nerves, stressing them, and affecting employee health. With the isolation and remote work without letting the employees go out of home can negatively impact their emotional health.
The management can check frequently with the employees and have a chat about their uncertainties and limitations, giving them a sense that their employers genuinely care about their wellbeing. The managers can hold video conferences and send them videos or podcasts that give them a sense of relief, and more importantly, increase their trust in the employer.
Employee Engagement
In short, employee engagement can be defined as the level of loyalty and attachment the employee has towards the workplace, their job, and its goals, something which is usually instilled in the workers by the leadership qualities and pro-employee policies of the management.
Employee engagement can be easily enhanced when the company makes strategies that the employees attain a better work-life balance. Also, by staying in constant touch with the employees of all levels, connecting them over their tasks, and checking on their overall updates is a great way of boosting engagement.
Apart from these primary factors, adequate sleep and healthy lifestyle habits like limited smoking or alcohol consumption also play a major role during this lockdown period to overcome procrastination and lead a more active and healthy life.
The current lockdown is a global situation, and it looks like remote work is the solution for many companies for a long time. However, employers need to understand that remote working comes with its own messy times, stressing the employees even more. With pets and children around, things may only get more worrisome.
During such times of fear and anxiousness, it is vital to ensure employees stay safe – physically and mentally. As an employer, you need to make plans that focus on the fundamentals of improving engagement, while keeping your workforce hale and healthy.
At Wellness360, we offer different corporate wellness programs that can promote good employee health by throwing the spotlight on various wellness aspects, like diet, exercise, sleep, lifestyle habits, and emotional wellness.