5 proven strategies to increase wellbeing in the workplace and help your team thrive
We all know our staff are our most important asset, so how do we support them to be at their best?
According to the ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing, nearly 44% of Australians have reported that they have experienced a mental disorder at some stage in their life. They define a mental disorder as ‘a clinically diagnosable disorder that significantly interferes with an individual’s cognitive, emotional or social abilities.’
Over the years we have had the privilege of working in partnership with businesses to increase their team’s personal leadership and wellbeing and have seen first hand some pretty great examples of how they take the lead in investing in their team’s wellbeing.
We wanted to share with you our top 5 tips to help enhance wellbeing in your teams.
Find meaningful ways for your team to connect and build relationships
Where possible find ways for your team to connect and build relationships with each other. Consider how you ensure equal representation on committees and projects, so individuals can add value within a team, whilst sharing and learn new ideas with each other.
Ask what is important to them and provide opportunities that add value, such as team building activities, co-worker sports team, lunchtime book club, family day, team volunteering for a chosen charity and embrace technology to connect your remote workers too, virtual team lunch anyone?
Encourage healthy habits
How can your workplace and leaders demonstrate and promote healthy habits?
Consider:
o Creating healthy boundaries - limit after-hours emails and schedule to send during business hours
o Leaders’ role modelling taking their lunch breaks
o Increasing physical activity has been linked to wellbeing in numerous ways including decreasing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and loneliness and improves mental focus and clarity
o Get a change of scenery, go outside, walk, move, do you have a local playground near by the office
o Can you offer assistance with gym memberships or allied health such as physiotherapy?
o Embed a team fitness or creating new habit challenge
o What about a simple fruit bowl for those who are on the run to keep sustained?
o Agree and display your office norms around protected time, headphones on means ‘I’m in the zone and please don’t interrupt unless urgent’
Provide learning and development opportunities
How do you help your team to lead themselves to success? Invest in the person, not just the employee, by aligning learning and development opportunities to personal interests and goals.
Consider:
o Personal leadership programs that help identify individuals’ motivations and goals
o Investing in training with individual training budgets and self-directed learning opportunities
o Prevention programs that provide tools that develop resilience to inoculate against poor mental health
o Provide training opportunities that enable participants to identify roadblocks to success and empower them to overcome them to achieve their goals Increase motivation and engagement
Show appreciation
Do you remember what it feels like when someone last showed you appreciation? How did it make you feel? Perhaps it even motivated you?
Receiving appreciation from others can increase a person’s positive feelings and improve their self-esteem.
How do you show your team they are appreciated?
Consider:
· Practicing gratitude – wins – celebrate and acknowledge the achievements
· Instead of the Kris Kringle gifts, what about writing your KK on an appreciation card for their contributions and how they make a positive impact for you at work?
· Whether you celebrate birthdays and anniversaries?
· Flexible working conditions
· How can you empower their decision making and show trust that you appreciate their contributions?
Increase employee motivation and engagement
Engaging staff in the broader purpose of the organisation has been shown to increase loyalty and retention rates across multiple sectors.
It doesn’t have to be complicated, simply getting the basics right can demonstrate to employees the care factor.
Including having:
o Visibility of company mission, vision and values
o Good job design with role clarity that is aligned to strategic goals
o Ergonomics - don’t underestimate the negative impacts of not having a good set up, which can lead to increased levels of stress, headaches and lowers productivity
o I bet you have a fire warden and staff trained in first aid, but do you have staff trained in mental health first aid?
Want even more strategies to help your team thrive?
Book a discovery call today and see how our evidenced-based programs can help build strong resilient workplaces with self-directed and empowered employees.