The WellRight Blog

June is National Employee Wellness Month, and what a strange month it will be. Typically, this time of year is all about finally getting out of doors after a long winter and rainy spring. It’s about going on weekend trips and family vacations for some much-deserved rest and relaxation. Summer is, usually, the season of wellness.

This year is different. Workplaces have been closed for months. Access to gyms, parks, and beaches has been restricted. Even as some businesses and public facilities reopen, people are anxious about going out again—a full 15% of Americans indicated on a May 26 Statista poll that they were afraid to leave their house. Many are fretting about the economic toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on their families while also worrying about the virus itself. Indeed, as of April, the lion’s share of Americans are either very or somewhat concerned about the virus.

Emotionally, your employees are on edge. Physically, they’re worn out. Is now even the right time to celebrate wellness in the workplace?

Whether it comes next month or several months from now, it’s going to happen. The stay-at-home regulations will be lifted, the threat of the coronavirus will recede, and public health officials will deem it safe for Americans to go back to work.

It’s important to understand that going back to the office won’t feel like business as usual for many of your employees. But planning now for the day you finally reopen your doors–however soon or far off that may be–can mitigate confusion and stress among your employees and make for a smooth transition.

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.