Engaging Employees with Workplace Wellness Techniques

Authored by Neeraj Kumar, Founder & CEO, PeakMind

With the rising cases of pandemic in the country, work from home is back as an option on the board table again. Along with its return, it brings back memories of family time, work and home life balance and the dread of meeting deadlines in between completing home chores. Most of us have gone through the pros and cons of long term WFH process las t year. While we are certainly more prepared to deal with it, there is no denying the fact that employees need help.

Employee Mental wellbeing has been recognised as an innate and entrenched part of the organisational success. When an employee is happy with their job and the perks they enjoy, it reflects in their contribution and output. A happy employee is the picture-perfect advocate of the workplace. They are happy, more motivated to give their best, and think out of the box to achieve success. In comparison, a disengaged employee is very recognisable as their outputs are always just a tick mark for the job done. They usually feel low and complain a lot, their motivation to work is diminishing every day, and this also affects the morale of the people around them. This eventually leads to a lot of resentment and overall productivity of the organisation take a hit.

Hence it is highly recommended for organisation to not only identify these factors in employees but also built a robust employee wellbeing engagement plan that monitors employee behaviour and detects disengaged employees to further coach them and understand their problems. Mental wellbeing is become so much more important to deal with in a remote workplace set up as the reduced face time detects these challenges only after its too late.

How A Corporate Wellness Program Helps Employees and Its Benefits to The Organisation

A recent McKinsey survey of approximately 1,000 employers found that 90 percent reported that the COVID-19 crisis was affecting the behavioural health and often the productivity of their workforce. This shows that the new normal mandates that employee engagement plan should now make wellness programs a big part of it and monitor it closely to chart out next courses of action.

Employee wellness involves helping employee deal with current challenges but more importantly helping them to become future ready and upskilling them emotionally to face challenges on both professional and personal fronts.  Many companies like PeakMind offer a bunch of solutions to get people upskilled and future ready. Based on the concepts of positive psychology, a series of workshops is curated which is aimed at developing specific strengths in people that will prepare employees to deal with any challenging situation as well as make their present easier to manage. According to Schaufeli & Bakker 2001, work engagement includes 3 elements, vigor, dedication, and absorption. The solutions offered under these programs should cater to developing all the three elements in a systematic and a scientific manner. For instance, when employees may feel overwhelmed and not able to experience the vigor and absorption, our EAP solution can aid employees deal with those feelings. A team of expert counsellors can guide the employees through the challenges to get them ready to get feel the vigor and dedication again.

In 2019, the World Health Organization labelled employee burnout a medical condition, noting that its cause is chronic workplace stress. Research shows that workplace stressors such as long hours, economic insecurity, work–family conflict, and high job demands coupled with low job control are as harmful to health as second-hand smoke.

Engagement is all about connecting your biggest assets – your employees - emotionally with the organization. With specialised health wellness companies providing courses on various aspects of work life like managing stress, handling conflicts, managing work-life balance, or dealing with negative thinking, organisations can gain competitive advantage by solving the most undetected internal problems on time.  All the courses use principles of positive psychology and help employees examine a situation more positively and look for opportunities in challenges thereby helping them connect better with the organization. 

I personally believe, when people are future-ready they will be able to carve for themselves a clear path in the organization thereby feeling more engaged. Let us come together to help reduce the burnout that is felt worldwide due to the pandemic and give healthier work life a chance to grow.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and Adgully.com does not necessarily subscribe to it.