The WellRight Blog

It seems like the days when people would stay with a single employer for decades are long gone.

The numbers say that millennials—the most populous generation in the U.S. labor force—change their jobs at three times the rate of older generations. A resume packed with frequent job hops no longer carries the stigma it once did.

Changing attitudes about employment are combining with a booming economy to generate the highest quit-rate in years. And more than half of American workers are looking for a new job or watching openings.

In other words, if an employee isn’t highly engaged, they’re out the door.

It’s a well-established fact: When employees make healthy choices, eat better, exercise more, and learn to reduce the stress in their lives, they engage more with their jobs. Absenteeism, presenteeism, and turnover go down, while productivity, creativity, and morale go up.

But as you probably know from your own life, reversing long standing habits is easier said than done. If you’ve become accustomed to grabbing fast food for comfort after an exhausting day of work, you may have trouble psyching yourself up for fresh produce. If you’re used to waking up to your Twitter feed, a 20-minute meditation may, at first, seem like a disappointing substitute.

That’s where an employee wellness program comes in. A good wellness program nudges your team toward healthy habits with a combination of fun challenges, community support, and education. But the best wellness program in the world won’t make much difference if your employees don’t use it.

Tag! You’re it!

As a kid, those words were the signal to run like the wind, as your friends scattered across the playground, clambering up the monkey bars and dancing just out of your reach.

At no point during this activity did you stop and wonder how many calories you had burned.

Play can be transformative, making almost any activity more enjoyable and helping the time pass much more quickly. And if you want your corporate wellness program (and your wellness challenge ideas) to be more enjoyable for employees, why not incorporate a sense of play into it?

The CEO of the agency welcomes you on your first day and leads you to your workspace. It’s decked out with top-line equipment: a brand-new Mac, an Aeron chair, and a glossy-white desk.

The only thing your new office is missing? Walls.

The United States has approximately 3 million more STEM jobs available than skilled workers to fill them.

Some companies find it hard to compete with the allure of the Amazons and Googles of the tech world. Others are challenged to find local job-seekers with the right skill sets. Regardless, one thing is clear: Tech employers need to find innovative ways to attract and retain top employees.

Working women are doing their best to manage the increasing demands on their personal and professional lives, yet they’re feeling more stressed than ever—and more than their male counterparts. A recent survey of employees in the United Kingdom found that 79% of women—compared with 66% of men—experience work stress. Women ages 35 to 49 fared the worst, with a whopping 87% feeling stressed at work.

When employees are stressed, they’re less focused and motivated, and this often translates into a big hit to your company’s productivity.

“You think you’re busy—just wait until you have kids!”

As irritating as this pronouncement can be to those without children, there is a certain grain of truth in it. Having children really does add a hectic new dimension to life.

But, there’s work to be done. And so, new parents must find a way to balance the demands of their job with the demands of their tiny, toothless new overlords. What role can their employer play? How can the company culture support new parents and set up a win-win situation for everybody?

Impact. Selflessness. Courage. Responsibility.

When Netflix wrote and published the 126-slide deck “Netflix Culture,” it used these words, among others, to clearly describe to employees the behaviors and attributes the company deemed important for success.

Many other companies don’t put anywhere near that amount of thought into their culture … if they put any thought into it at all.

But optimizing your company culture can be one of the most powerful ways to improve not just the wellness of your employees, but the wellness of your company as a whole. 

We live in an age of research. People research purchases big and small, vacation spots, and even potential romantic partners, all from their devices or laptops.

There’s a commonly held belief that married couples often end up resembling each other as they age. As it turns out, this may be true. Researchers who have studied married couples report spouses’ similar facial features are due to the decades of emotions they’ve shared.

But facial features aren’t the only things we share with those we are close to.

We often take on the attitudes, behaviors, and emotions of the people we surround ourselves with in both our personal and professional lives—and this can have a profound effect on our health and wellness.