The Benefits of Workplace Wellness Programs

• March 09, 2018
• Newsletter Article

How often do you consider your employees health and wellness? What is workplace wellness? Learn more!

---

 

 

The biggest asset to your business is your employees. Without a great team, your success may be limited.

How often do we consider the health of our employees? As well as the personal advantage of good health for each employee, the benefits to the business include:

• greater productivity
• reductions in work related ill-health and injuries
• lower workers compensation costs
• a decrease in absenteeism
• reduction in staff turnover
• a healthier work environment

But what is workplace wellness? Workplace wellness is any workplace health promotion activity or organisational policy designed to support healthy behavior in the workplace and to improve health outcomes.

There are 4 different areas to consider when supporting workplace wellness and it doesn’t mean that you have to set up an expensive gym or start hiring personal trainers. Wellness issues include:

Supporting healthy living:

• Healthy eating
• Active living
• Supporting non-smoking
• Work organisation and stress

Work/Life Balance

• Time management
• Work/life balance

Work Environment

• Providing facilities or supportive programs for active living, healthy eating, etc.
• Safe working environment
• Eliminating psychological risk factors
• Violence prevention policy (includes harassment and bullying)
• Fair hiring practices

Management Practices

• Training about stress management, time management, work/life balance, etc.
• Employee participation in the decisions that concern them (e.g. job analysis, new expansions, developments, etc.)
• Practices related to recognition and job satisfaction
• Support for performance of tasks (e.g. on-the-job training, training programs, work instructions, etc.)
• Flexible working hours to accommodate employees who wish to exercise before, after, or during work hours.

Your business may be too small to implement a grand strategy or plan, but at least ensure you keep ‘top of mind’ the 4 different areas and the issues within these areas.

For example, if you see your employees are skipping lunch, you may need to encourage them to leave their desk or organise a healthy food van visit each day. If an employee is struggling with time management, you could arrange a short course or training to assist them.

Sometimes we get so busy that we let our health slip, but our health and that of our employees can have enormous personal and business impacts.

For more information on career development in agriculture, visit www.AgCareers.com.