The WellRight Blog

If you talk to most enterprise-level executives about lessons learned in 2020, don’t be surprised if employee wellness is mentioned—often.

According to the HR.com 2021 State of Employee Health and Well-being study, 63% of organizational leaders agree that mental health is among their Human Resources department’s top five priorities moving forward. And 75% of HR professionals reported in the same study that employee wellness has become more of a priority.

To put it bluntly, if your organization isn’t prioritizing employee wellness, you might soon find yourselves at a competitive disadvantage.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

A common phrase, but what does it really mean? Put simply, an engaged team working towards a common goal can overcome any obstacle. When a team participates in a team-building exercise, they build the tools for real-world scenarios that demand cohesion.

But now that many are still working from home, how can this sense of teamwork translate into a remote world?

Typically, people choose to participate in Dry January—a month without booze—after a holiday season of overconsumption. But this New Year, Dry January comes after not just a couple of months of above-average drinking, but nearly a full year.

Few things bring teams together and inspire individual achievement more than striving toward a shared goal—or overcoming a shared challenge. We all learned that lesson in 2020—but in 2021, your organization can apply the idea to something a bit more healthy, fun, and productive.

A company-wide employee wellness challenge that all employees participate in is one of the key best practices for implementing a successful wellness program.

We don’t know what the future will hold. The COVID-19 pandemic might start to recede, or it might worsen. Our children may continue remote education, or they may head back to school. The economy might begin to recover, or it might drop a bit more.

One major source of uncertainty for your employees is the question about where they might find themselves working in the coming weeks and months. Will they stay at home for the foreseeable future, or will they be called back to the office?

The war for talent hasn’t stopped just because of the pandemic. If anything, the competition for top employees has intensified in 2020. With so many companies embracing remote work, many employees are no longer restricted by geography when it comes to their employment options. Another effect of the rise in remote work? It’s become even more difficult for companies to keep high-performing workers from considering employment elsewhere.

It’s understandable if you’re not feeling 100% like yourself in 2020. Neither are your employees. In times of upheaval, the “soft” skills we use at work—focus, patience, creativity, attention to detail—can all suffer.

How can we regain our sense of stability?

A thriving wellness culture doesn’t just happen overnight. It’s something every organization has to build—sometimes from the ground up. A Wellness Champion Network can help you get there faster, with more buy-in throughout your organization.

What is a Wellness Champion Network? It’s a team of people working toward the same goal: making your company a healthier place.

I’ve noticed there's a lot of talk in the business world about engaging employees and improving morale, but a large percent of the workforce continues to be actively disengaged. According to a recent Achievers report, only 19 percent of employees consider themselves “very engaged.” In addition, employee burnout is hitting an all-time high with more than two-thirds, or 69 percent, of employees experiencing burnout symptoms while working from home. What can we do to address disengagement? Start with employee recognition.

Adult life is busy. There’s work with its competing demands and deadlines, the many chores involved with managing a home and raising a family, social obligations, personal time for exercise, and once in a while, a little bit of relaxation.

That doesn’t leave much time for learning and developing new skills. Fortunately, “not much time” may be all that’s needed.