8 Essential Corporate Well-being Programs to Promote a Healthy Workplace Culture

In this day and age of fast-paced, high-energy, and stress-heavy everyday living, it’s important to at least have a workplace where the health and well-being of employees are prioritized. Apart from the home, we spend a good chunk of our time in the office. Therefore, the culture there needs to foster a sense of safety and security holistically. There should be corporate well-being programs in place to protect the workforce from burnout, breakdowns, and overwork.

This might be an idea you’ve been sitting on for some time as a leader, manager, or business owner but you’re unsure about where to begin. Don’t sweat it. We’ve got you. In this article, we’ll give you examples of the various workplace wellbeing programs you may want to run in your company along with the small changes you can make to create an environment that encourages peer support, positive behaviors, and overall better employee health.

Implement health and well-being programs in the workplace

These employee wellbeing programs are always tricky to get off the ground. Some people might feel like their management or corporate leadership teams are infringing on their personal lives by getting involved in their health. Other people might not want to or are afraid to find out what’s wrong with them. That’s why it’s key that there is trust and open communication already established before you even get started on anything. Make everyone feel safe. Enforce a no-judgment zone where anything and everything can be brought out in the open without fear of exposure or ridicule.

Let your employees know that they are valued, cared for, and looked after. Not for anything else but because your company puts a high premium on employee wellbeing. This is with the understanding that whatever happens in peoples’ personal lives is interconnected with professional performance.

Remember that these initiatives do not have to involve big steps or events that the whole company knows about. These can be carried out quietly, and strictly between the employee and health and wellbeing professional. When launching such programs, be sensitive to people’s feelings of vulnerability.

With all that being said, here are some of the corporate well-being programs that you can implement to promote a healthy workplace culture where you work:

1. Offer mental health support to anyone in the company who needs it

You might not get a loud outburst or a disruptive meltdown in the bullpen but if you look and listen very closely, you will be able to spot the signs. Different people have varying levels of strengths and tolerances. Something that you can just ignore might be the straw that breaks another camel’s back, so to speak. If you pay attention, you’ll be able to see someone’s resolve fray around the edges. It can begin with simple things like tardiness, showing up to meetings unprepared, or trailing behind in deadlines and deliverables.

Providing confidential counseling services and resources to assist employees in managing stress, anxiety, and other mental health challenges can help a lot. Especially if your job is high-pressure or let’s say you have an extremely close-knit team and someone gets sick, passes away, or leaves the company. People’s responses to these things are entirely human and should, therefore, be managed correctly. Others are not well-versed on how to handle big hurdles such as these and would need professional guidance to cope. Make these initiatives as unceremonious as you can to avoid drawing attention to the staff members who utilize them. Invite anyone and everyone and assure them that they are safe and will be taken care of.

Want to keep better track of your employees’ stress levels so you can readily give support before it’s too late? Get an HR management platform that has a mobile app where every worker in your company can monitor your stress levels. Having this knowledge on hand allows those who can act in time to alleviate the issue before it all gets too much.

You can also adopt an online collaboration platform that will allow you to track people’s tasks and projects along with their deadlines. Being able to monitor these in real time will enable you to catch outliers sooner like those who miss deadlines all of a sudden or fail to meet your usual quality standards. You can address these right away, conduct corporate well-being programs, and minimize the potential damage to your brand.

2. Conduct wellness workshops with professionals

Some employers wonder what they can do during the lean season to motivate their staff and get them excited for the coming peak season. In all honesty, rank-and-file employees use quiet lulls in the business to rest and recuperate physically, mentally, and emotionally. To them, it’s all about recovery. How can you help, being a leader, manager, or owner of the business?

You can give them a break from the grind while easing them into another upcoming busy season by conducting wellness workshops. Unsure as to what that is? Here are a few examples:

Hosting regular corporate wellbeing workshops on topics such as nutrition, mindfulness, and stress management aimed at promoting healthy lifestyles and habits among employees. The idea is to make these workshops not feel like wellness workshops by appealing to your staff’s interests and pursuits. They also do not need to be structured. Let your employees loosen up and have enjoyment amongst colleagues and friends. If you’re running out of ideas, you can also ask people what they need, wellness-wise. You’ll be surprised at the number of innovative ideas that will end up on your list.

3. Organize fitness programs to be conducted regularly

On average, adults spend anywhere from 8 to 12 hours per day sitting down. A sedentary lifestyle is a surefire way for anyone’s health to take a downward turn quickly. Help employees out and keep them as healthy as possible by organizing and running fitness programs in the workplace. Your chosen program can depend on the size of your workforce or even your budget allotment.

If you have the room in your building and the budget for equipment, you can set up an on-site gym, free for use by any member of the staff. Once a month or so, you can also invite instructors over to show your team members how to do Zumba, step workouts, Pilates, yoga, and the like. If you acquire stationary bikes, you can go for some soul cycle classes!

Smaller company? No worries! You don’t need a gym on the premises. Instead, you can give away gym memberships. Additionally, you can always conduct your very own corporate well-being programs on the weekends such as:

• Step challenges – Keep in mind that to avoid a sedentary lifestyle, an average adult would need anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 steps per day. Make it into a competition with a great prize awaiting the winner at the end of the month.

• Walking meetings – Very few people get excited about meetings. You can tie team calibration sessions with post-lunch corporate wellbeing programs like a walk around the office building. Or you can take lunch and meetings outside at a nearby park and walk back to work to stretch your hams.

• Wellness town halls – Some people pick up on things better when they’re being presented to them as facts, tips, and statistics. You can invite nutritionists, mindfulness specialists, yogis, stress management experts, and the like.

There are a lot of other things you can do to get your staff more active or at least interested in their health. An enterprise well-being program doesn’t have to feel like such. Health and fitness can be maintained easily and by using enjoyable means. Most people just need a little encouragement or innovative ways to do it.

4. Provide flexible work options for everyone on staff

We live in an age where business needs, market demands, industry trends, and employee well-being requirements change a great deal. If you want to support your staff, you have to be flexible enough to meet their needs. Is it even possible at all? The answer is “Yes”. All it takes is careful planning, resource management, and proper communication. Implementing flexible scheduling, telecommuting, or compressed workweeks to accommodate personal needs and promote work-life balance can do so much. Here’s what some of these things mean:

• Flexible scheduling – This scheme makes full use of the hours and periods during the day when employees are more productive. They can come in anytime during the day but ideally when they have a lot of meetings, reports, and such scheduled and complete a regular 40-hour workweek. They can also work under time – below 8 or 9 hours a day – if they do not have anything else on their agenda. Flexible scheduling is perfect for creatives, freelancers, graphic artists, coders, and such.

Flexible scheduling also includes allowing workers to swap schedules with each other as needed to avoid absences and tardiness. You can plan to the teeth but emergencies can spring up anytime and cripple your business if you’re not willing to work around these events.

• Telecommuting – This entails working from home or any other location that is not the designated office. Sales and other field workers usually take advantage of this so they can check in and report back from anywhere at any time during the day. Otherwise considered as remote work, telecommuting enables employees to be still productive and get their jobs done even without being physically in the office.

• Compressed workweek – A regular workweek involves an 8-hour work schedule, 5 days a week. A compressed workweek means cutting down workdays from 5 days to 4. Companies can choose to cut down work hours to allow people to work for fewer hours per day. Or businesses can opt to extend required work hours to 10 hours per day, to allow team members to still clock in 40 hours with the added benefit of three-day weekends. This scheme can be tested out first to see if it’s favorable to everyone involved.

How do these qualify as corporate wellbeing programs, you ask? When you’re flexible and more than willing to meet your workers’ needs, you lessen their stress and ease the pressures of day-to-day living by taking away a few things they need to worry about. Once your employees know they can come to you with a request that you will consider carefully and possibly grant, they’ll communicate, deliver, and produce more.

5. Implement and extend Employee Assistance Programs (EAP)

Life can get complicated for a lot of us and the time comes when we need all the help we can get, including the entities we work for. When we run into problems, it might take us some time to recalibrate or figure out our next steps. This is where corporate wellbeing programs such as EAPs can be lifesavers.

Providing access to a comprehensive EAP that offers counseling, legal assistance, financial planning, and other support services for employees and their families safeguards employees’ welfare while fostering loyalty and trust between business and staff. These services can get very expensive that’s why having these corporate wellbeing programs in place shows that you care not only for the company but for the people who built it and help it prosper. You can have professionals and consultants on call in case they’re needed, ready to assist when asked.

6. Establish rewards and recognition initiatives

Most of the time, all employees need is to feel valued, appreciated, and fulfilled on the job. If you notice anyone lagging or underperforming, you can snap them back to their full potential by showing them that you reward and recognize hard work, dedication, and commitment. Business owners and leaders simply cannot expect employees to keep working without giving them a little incentive; just a little extra something that makes the job a bit more enjoyable.

Establishing a recognition program as part of corporate wellbeing programs to acknowledge employees’ contributions and achievements can foster a positive work environment and boost morale. These rewards do not have to be major ones. They can be as simple as a paid special lunch, an extra day off from work, holiday premiums, or even tickets to the cinema or a small concert nearby. Simple but memorable gestures such as appreciation badges, kudos emails, and milestone certificates can also do the trick.

7. Schedule regular health screenings and preventive care

Another scheme that companies can add to their corporate well-being programs is organizing regular health screenings and wellness checks. They empower employees to take proactive steps toward maintaining their health and keeping illnesses at bay. Although a one-time check-up may not be too expensive on its own, the costs can certainly pile up if checks and medications are added together.

If you have a health card for your staff, you can work in partnership with an affiliate clinic to cover the costs. These clinics usually tap in professionals, so you can be sure your team members will all be looked after, and their tests will be completed to the highest standard. Getting a full panel of tests and checks done for health and wellbeing programs in the workplace is a lot cheaper if you look at the bigger picture.

8. Make remote well-being support available to everyone

Sometimes, we need little quick fixes here and there when we feel out of sorts or like we’re stuck in a rut. Stepping away for a day or two can work wonders for corporate employee well-being. But what happens when everyone is busy and you’re in the middle of a peak season? A responsible and truly caring employer will ensure that every person on staff has ready access to resources that will help them cope with anything they’re struggling with. This entails carrying out remote-friendly initiatives such as virtual meditation sessions, online fitness challenges, and digital mental health resources to support remote and hybrid work environments.

It always helps if you have healthcare professionals on hand whenever they’re needed which can make a great difference to a remote worker who’s experiencing a crisis somewhere else in the country or the world. Always check that there are contingencies in place in case one resource is not contactable so you don’t keep someone who requires assistance waiting for it.

You can store all the contact information, SOP for contacting available professionals, and steps for generally reaching out for help in an online document. Store this reference in a team drive so it’s available online and offline. Make this document accessible to everyone so they can refer to it anytime.

Make health and wellbeing programs in the workplace available for all

As a business owner or manager, you can’t possibly be everywhere at once. It would also be impossible to know what’s wrong with one employee. Some people dislike asking or receiving help, regardless of how badly they need it.

It’s critical to keep these resources available to any employee in the company who might need them. Make certain that staffers also know how to reach out for help. Document all the steps along with the essential contact information.

Bitrix24 is built complete with all the tools you may need to launch and maintain corporate well-being programs for the people in your employ. These tools are easy to use, intuitive, and highly helpful in your day-to-day functions. Sign up for Bitrix24 today and make good use of all the impressive software you require to protect people in your workforce from burnout, demotivation, and breakdowns.

FAQs

What is a corporate well-being program?

A corporate well-being program consists of several organizational strategies and schemes aimed at promoting all employees' health, happiness, and productivity of employees. These programs often include activities such as fitness classes, mental health support, stress management workshops, and flexible working arrangements to promote a balanced and positive work environment.

Why is a workplace well-being program important?

A workplace well-being program is important in encouraging employees to live healthier lifestyles to better support the rigors of their daily work lives. Workplace well-being programs help workers make sound decisions about the food they eat and vices they should eliminate while teaching them how to exercise and manage stress more effectively.

Which well-being programs are the best?

The best well-being programs are those that are carefully planned and executed, backed by professionals and field experts. They produce remarkable results in the morale, temperament, and overall behavior of employees, resulting in happier, healthier, and more productive staff.