Workplace Wellbeing: A Rethink is Needed – And How Human Sustainability Can Help
In an age where burnout and stress are on the rise, workplace wellness is not just a nice to have. It’s now a crucial component of success. Madison Ayache explores the importance of investing in your team’s wellbeing and how this could turn good intentions into a lasting impact.
What motivates and drives your team? Many businesses are realizing that wellbeing is at the forefront of their minds. It’s not only good work or a good workplace that fosters wellbeing, but also doing good.
Many businesses demonstrate their ‘doing well’ by creating meaningful experiences, which support employee wellbeing as well as business success. Many businesses organise charity days or other events to ensure that they are ‘doing well’ as well. This could be by volunteering their time with a local charity, or helping to renovate or rebuild a local area.
Why is workplace wellness still a problem?
Start the conversation
A lack of genuine employee engagement is one of the most significant barriers. All too often, wellness initiatives are implemented as mandates from the top down – a charity day every year that looks great in a report, but doesn’t involve employee input. The potential benefits of wellbeing are often overlooked without active participation.
According to a recent London Benchmarking Group study, employee volunteering in the UK shows just 14.3% engagement–translating into more than 200 million hours of untapped potential. The conversation must begin with the employees if we are to bring back the wellness in the workplace. What is important to them? Ask them what they want.
The cost of disengagement
This lack of connection is not due to disinterest. Sixty-four percent of millennials said they would not accept a position with a company without a strong sense for social responsibility. It’s clear that workplace wellness is not optional when you consider the financial impact of poor mental wellbeing in the workplace. UK employers are currently paying out PS56 billion per year for this. It’s an imperative for business.
Spiritual Wellness: The Next Frontier
What’s the answer? The key is to involve employees at the beginning and make meaningful actions more common. But it’s also important to identify the type of “goodness” that your team needs. Businesses that align their values and actions are tapping into spiritual well-being, a form of wellness that is centered on meaning, purpose and belonging.
This is the core of our work at CTW Events. We help businesses define what is important to them and then make it real through high-impact experiences that are energizing. These events do not only provide essential supplies such as hygiene products, school kits, and food. They also help create lasting relationships within teams and communities.
Human sustainability can support a healthier and more engaged workforce. It can also reduce turnover rates, resulting in a more resilient culture within the company.
Stop treating workplace wellness as an isolated initiative. Let’s build it into the DNA of our organisations–together.
To find out more about team-building activities that put human sustainability at the centre, visit www.ctwevents.org or download our Essential Guide to Employee Wellbeing at www.ctwevents.org/wellbeing-guide.
The first time this post How to transform workplace well-being by focusing on sustainability appeared was on Human Resources News.
