Workplace Wellness that Works summary

Do you know what Mikaela Shiffrin said before she won the gold medal for the slalom race at the  2014 Winter Olympics? “To everybody, this is my first Olympics. But to me it’s my thousandth.” She was referring to her vision; she had visualized the race over and over to build faith in her success, which enabled her to win. So how does this apply to workplace well-being?

Creating a vision allows you to believe in and realize a healthier workplace.

Ever felt disengaged at the office? You’re not the only one! According to Gallup, 70 percent of the US workforce is disengaged at work. This is toxic for any work environment and costs around $450 billion per year. This isn’t good for any of us, but how can we tackle it?

Let’s look at workplace culture, the basis for your organization’s well-being movement.

If given the choice, which activity would you do first: something you’re bad at or something you’re good at? Most likely the latter! And that’s exactly where your wellness programs should start, too.

To get your movement off to a flying start: focus on strengths, both on the individual and organizational levels.

Does your company offer healthy perks? In Berlin startups, for example, it’s normal to have free fruit in a communal eating area. But just offering healthy snacks doesn’t necessarily increase the overall well-being of your employees.

So how can you take your well-being movement to the next level? Take some advice from Leonardo da Vinci. Having been a painter, inventor, engineer and botanist (among other things), da Vinci is a symbol of interdisciplinarity and a fantastic inspiration for your movement.

Some people will roll their eyes at the mere mention of wellness initiatives: they just don’t buy into it or they mistake it for esoteric nonsense. So how can we convince them otherwise? Well, there are two ways to win over skeptics.

The first is renaming, and it’s the perfect way to sneak well-being into the workplace.

So you started with the easy things and slipped in your wellness program. Now, how can you maintain motivation? By instilling feelings of competency, autonomy and relatedness.

To make people feel competent, ask them to share their knowledge and experience. We all have insights and stories about what we do to feel good. Even a simple weight-loss story could be incredibly helpful to staff.

Ever wondered about the fly stuck in the center of male urinals? This is what’s known as a nudge. This unassuming fly increases accuracy, as men will naturally aim for it when they use the facilities! What does that have to do with workplace wellness, you ask?

Nudges and cues are highly effective approaches to behavioral change. By making small adjustments to the environment according to your wellness initiative, nudges and cues coax us into behaving differently.

You’ve recognized the downfalls of your workplace and shored up some fantastic health-boosting strategies. Now it’s time to launch your program. Take a look at the following tips and insights for the best way to jump-start your movement.

First, learning through doing and encouraging a growth mindset in your organization will ease your staff into your wellness program.

If you’re part of an international company, getting local staff to participate in your program is great, but what comes next? Starting to think big. Now it’s time to start spreading your movement throughout company branches all over the world. This can be best achieved by cultivating a global mindset in your organization.

The first part of this mindset involves unitizing standards inside your company. This can also increase well-being by encouraging a culture of fairness. OzForex is a great example of this. OzForex is a multinational foreign exchange company with headquarters in Australia and many international offices all over the globe. They decided, in accordance with the normal and guaranteed four weeks of holidays in Australia, that they would start offering these holidays to all offices throughout the organization so that all employees could benefit from it.