Employee Engagement and Wellness In The Workplace: Guest Post
Today, The Petrova Experience brings you a guest article about employee engagement and organizational culture. This piece is by Natalie DeVito, of Commonwealth Joe. Commonwealth Joe is an innovative company, new to the New York City market. It offers boutique coffee and beverage services to offices and residences.
The Commonwealth Joe perspective on Health and Wellness in the workplace connects with our conversations about the importance of culture values and employee engagement in building stronger brands and experiences for employees and customers.
It’s no secret that the Health and Wellness industry has seen significant growth over the last several years, growing 12.8% from 2016 to 2018 and making the industry worth over $4.2 trillion globally. As Americans become more health conscious, the increasing demand for achieving personal health has led the Wellness industry to expand far beyond the traditional focus of fitness and ‘health food’. There is now a growing focus on other areas, such as Wellness Tourism, Wellness Real Estate, and Workplace Wellness, with Workplace Wellness valued at $47.5 billion in 2018.
For the Commonwealth Joe team, Workplace Wellness is an important facet within the Health & Wellness industry. With rising health issues and healthcare costs, it’s becoming more and more important to make individual health and wellbeing a primary focus. To help employees manage their wellness and achieve their health goals, many companies are beginning to implement wellness programs in their corporate environments. There are many benefits that workplace wellness programs can provide employees to help achieve their long term health goals. In today’s blog post, we break down some of the benefits of a workplace wellness program.
Employee Engagement Gets The Team Together
Taking hold of your health on your own and without much direction can be confusing, discouraging, and a little boring. However, doing so with a group of supporting co-workers can create engagement, motivation, and support for the whole team. Group-focused wellness activities like in-office yoga or meditation, walking/running club, and team softball are engaging ways to get everyone involved in a healthy activity outside of the office. Additionally, these activities promote office engagement, giving employees the chance to get to know each other in a more casual setting.
Provide Health & Wellness Education as Part of Employee Engagement
There is a nerve-wracking aspect of getting your health on track. With new diets, food options, and fitness styles continuously popping up, it can become hard to decipher what diets, foods, and workouts are long-lasting and which are a sham. On top of that, everybody is different. What works for Lynda in Accounting might not provide the same results for Ben in Sales. Giving employees valuable education on the basics of health and wellness will provide them with the tools to determine what facets work best for them, and what tips they can leave behind. They will have more confidence in the effort they are putting in, giving them better results and leading them to make more permanent changes that they would get with a diet fad.
Support your Team with Healthy Food Choices
Making a major change to your lifestyle can be a big challenge and having to consider making healthier food choices at the office when there is the option for chips, cookies, and sugar-laden drinks is a recipe for failure. Support your team by providing healthy alternatives to traditional snacks. Things like raw nuts and seeds, fresh fruits and vegetables, and beverage alternatives like nitro cold brew coffee and kombucha will help keep your team on track while still providing them with delicious snacks and beverages.
Reduce Medical Costs For Employees
Healthcare costs are continuously rising, causing a risk for many employers and leading them to implement different cost-reducing strategies, like offering a high-deductible plan or charging insurance carriers. However, employees can help to reduce their own healthcare costs if they are able to put more time and effort into their health with the help of a workplace wellness program. The more focus an employee puts on their well being, the less sick days, doctor visits, and prescription medicines they will likely require. To make this savings a little sweeter, many employers are lowering employee’s contributions with rebates if they participate in their company’s wellness programs.
Good Employee Enagement Makes Employees Feel Valued
On top of all of this, workplace wellness is improving employee and office happiness. Employees feel that their employer invests in them and their wellbeing, not just in the work they do but also in their personal health. They appreciate that their employer allocates time in the workday to exercise, provides healthy and well balanced catered lunches, and offers up valuable resources, like nutritionists, massage therapists, and guided meditations for their employees to take advantage of.
Workplace Wellness is helping many offices improve the quality of work and happiness of many employees. However, adding a wellness program to any corporate culture can also have its challenges, as it’s not easy to find one wellness plan that works for every employee. Start small and take employee feedback into consideration when deciding what wellness perks work versus what perks to toss. If healthy beverages are the best place to start in your office, visit KegVending.com to learn more about what on-tap craft beverage alternatives would be a good fit for your office.
This article originally appeared on the Commonwealth Joe Blog.
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