The WellRight Blog

What happens when “hustle culture” gives way to prolonged work hours, maxed-out workloads, and extensive burnout?

You end up with employees “quiet quitting,” or doing the bare minimum amount of work to get by and maintain a better work-life balance.

While many younger employees are starting to give a name to their rising disengagement at work, you may be surprised to learn that quiet quitting didn’t originate on TikTok. 

In fact, the idea as we know it was even referenced as early as 1999, when we saw evidence of quiet quitting in the cult classic, Office Space.

Back-to-school season is officially in full swing, which means many of your parent employees are reshaping their daily routines, tapping in as homework guides, and trying to figure out when graphing calculators became so expensive.

This time of year is a period of adjustment and anxiety for many working parents. Not only are your employees having to reshuffle standing summer meetings, but they’re also excited (and nervous) about their kids returning to the classroom.

To accommodate overworked parents, companies need to provide flexible and supportive work environments that can adapt to the evolving needs of employees.

Uncertainty.

If we had to pick one word to describe how employers and employees feel about work and workplace wellness, that would be it. Uncertainty about the future, job security, physical safety, finances, and an overall sense of belonging in an increasingly remote world.

Today’s employees want safety and security in their workplace, and they want to feel supported by their employers.

The race to attract talent is intensifying for employers, and even your experienced “lifer” employees may be exploring other opportunities.

What they want isn’t complicated: recognition, respect for their well-being, opportunities to grow, and a place where they feel included. It comes down to something so simple—they want their employer to care about them. To see them as a person, not a headcount.

To retain (and win) great people at all levels, your company needs to be genuinely concerned about their well-being. And your wellness program is an excellent way to build and demonstrate this.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the pandemic has permanently changed how we work.

And the changes are far from over.

Workforce industry analysts are predicting some key trends for the future of remote work and hybrid workplaces that will impact where people work and even what they do for work.

But where does employee wellness fit in?

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?