The WellRight Blog

There’s a lot of conversation right now about how the pandemic has impacted workers across the country. However, younger employee populations, particularly members of Gen Z, are currently exhibiting more signs of mental and social health issues than older generations.

After graduating college and entering the workforce amidst the pandemic, Gen Z hasn’t been shy about making mental health and wellness one of their top priorities in accepting job offers. In October 2022, LinkedIn reported that 66% of Gen Z employees want a company culture built on mental health and wellness. Given that Gen Z will represent 27% of the workforce by 2025, companies are starting to take mental health in the workplace more seriously than ever before.

But there’s another area of well-being that Gen Z workers are especially grappling with on the heels of the pandemic—social wellness and connection.

Companies actively working on how to measure the impact and effectiveness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs might not realize they can lean on another related initiative to help quantify those efforts.

And they may already have the data available.

The initiative? ESG, which stands for “environmental, social, and governance.”

November is National Gratitude Month, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. With colder, darker days approaching—and times already tough for many—it’s invigorating to feel the warmth of little moments of sunshine.

You may already be familiar with some of the many benefits of gratitude, but have you ever thought about making gratitude even more of a focal point in your life? What about the lives of your employees?

Here are six wellness challenges that will not only transform your organization, but that will also help you experience a more fulfilled outlook on life.

For the last year and a half, companies have been slowly returning to work and figuring out what they expect and need from their employees.

What they’ve discovered is that no two workplace models are the same, and in order to fully support employees and still see powerful business returns, flexibility and adaptability truly are the names of the game.

Let’s take a look at some of the factors currently shaping a majority of work environments and assess how companies can give shape to optimal workplace environments that benefit all parties.

Editor's Note: We recently updated this previously published post with new insights.

"Tag! You’re it!"

As a kid, those words may have been your signal to run like the wind while you and your friends scattered across the playground.

At no point during this activity did you stop and wonder how many calories you were burning.

Playful games like tag can be transformative, making almost any activity more enjoyable. So if you want your corporate wellness program (and your wellness challenges) to be more enjoyable for your employees, why not weave a sense of play into your corporate wellness strategy?

The term “gig economy” has been thrown around a lot lately, especially with so many employers growing concerned about how it might affect retention, engagement, competition, and overall employee well-being. 

But what if the “gig economy” could actually improve those things and effectively enhance employee well-being?

As employee burnout continues to intensify throughout the country, nowhere else is it more severely experienced than in the health care industry.

From overworked nursing staff to overly strained cafeteria employees, health care workers are tasked with juggling multiple roles to accommodate systemic deficiencies that leave them feeling stressed, under-appreciated, and depleted. A certain amount of turnover is to be expected in this work environment, but across the country, hospitals have been seeing health care staff reshuffling or leaving in droves.

Between 2019 and 2021, turnover grew by 34% among health care workers, and as we transition out of the pandemic, they're either leaving unmanageable work environments or renouncing their professions altogether.

As such, describing this phenomenon as “burnout” doesn’t do justice to the structural shortcomings at play within hospitals and organizations. Feeling stressed or burned out is, unfortunately, the new normal among employees across industries, particularly health care, and it no longer makes sense to call it a passing fad stemming from pandemic-related stressors.

Burnout has officially evolved into a systemic crisis that wellness benefits like health insurance or a gym stipend can’t solely reverse.

What if you could solve your turnover, engagement, and customer service issues with your workplace wellness program?

That’s what wellness experts like Steven Van Yoder, co-founder of Returns on Wellbeing Institute (ROWI), are exploring as they research the effects of holistic wellness investments on organizational ROI and VOI. ROWI’s most recent publication, “Workplace Wellness: Best Practices Study 2022,” identifies key issues and recommendations related to employee financial wellness within organizations that are directly linked to successes in attracting, engaging, and retaining employees.

Fall marks the time of year when nature shows its beauty and reminds us to slow down, check in, and recharge. The holidays will be here before we know it, along with that recurrent combination of excitement and stress.

To add to those feelings, employees are still grappling with workplaces that continue to change significantly. Whether they’re burned out from working in multiple locations or participating in unsustainable and irrelevant wellness challenges, employees are in need of personalized wellness programs that address their unique needs and put their well-being first.

September is Hispanic Heritage Month, which is a great time to celebrate the wins and achievements of your Hispanic/Latinx employees. But attracting and retaining employees requires more than one week or one month of recognition.

Organizations need to intentionally create an inclusive workplace culture where employees feel safe to be their authentic selves and have equal opportunity for career advancement.