How to Boost Well-being in the Workplace

We live in an ever-increasingly fast paced, digital world. Almost every part of our lives revolves around devices, notifications, and constant information accessible from our finger tips that it’s no surprise we experience burnout on a global scale. Our brains are seldom equipped to handle so much excitement and activity on a day-to-day basis.

Luckily, we have the Mental Health Foundation to thank for their annual campaign Mental Health Awareness Week hosted every May. This event shifts the focus to the importance of mental health and how we can collectively foster our minds to ease stress and build strong mental resilience. The theme this year is ‘anxiety’, a feeling everyone is now accustomed to at some point in their lives and is now one of the most common mental health issues we face as a population. It impacts relationships, families, self-confidence, and work environments.

In our blog we’ll be focusing on the last point, because employee well-being is fast becoming a massive factor in the success of a business. If you have happy and nurtured employees, you have a more productive and engaged workforce; the gold standard!

With our lengthy experience and expertise in well-being, we’re going to share with you how you can improve the well-being in your workplace to curate a fantastic work environment for all.

Encourage Physical Activity

Sitting for extended periods of time can lead to physical and mental health problems. Encouraging employees to take regular breaks and engage in physical activity throughout the day can improve their overall well-being. You can promote this by providing standing desks or organising walking meetings.

Promote Healthy Eating

Good nutrition is crucial for maintaining a healthy body and mind. The best way to support this is to provide healthy snacks throughout your workplace, rather than try to control what they bring from home. If you want to encourage your teams to make better choices, you can also offer nutrition workshops or partner with a healthy meal delivery service. For more information on nutrition workshops, you can get in touch to speak with one of our team.

Practice Mindfulness

It’s well-known mindfulness can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. We suggest encouraging your teams to practice mindfulness techniques, such as meditation or breathing exercises. A great breathing exercise called cyclic sighing is shown to shut down panicky feelings quickly, perfect for moments of deep stress at work. Inhale once through your nose, followed by a short sharp inhale through your nose, then a long exhale through the mouth. You can also organize mindfulness workshops or bring in a mindfulness expert to help employees learn how to incorporate mindfulness into their daily routine. See our partner Headspace for more information on practicing mindfulness.

Promote Work-Life Balance

If you feel as though you have a good work-life balance you generally feel happy, wouldn’t you agree? It’s no surprise that in the workplace this makes you feel more productive and more resistant to burnout, as burnout stems from heavy stress. At work we’re given a certain amount of holiday per year, but increasing workloads make it feel hard to justify taking it. “I might miss a deadline or project launch if I go on holiday” is a familiar thought. It’s important to encourage your employees to take their holiday time and prioritise self-care, it’s what it’s there for! You can also implement flexible work arrangements to help individuals better balance their personal and professional responsibilities when suitable.

Offer Mental Health Support

Mental health is just as important as physical health. Offering mental health support to employees, such as counseling services or an employee assistance program is hugely beneficial to a happy workforce. Companies who do so are often praised for taking the initiative to look after their people. You can also provide training to managers to help them identify and support employees who may be struggling with mental health issues. Making them aware of such initiatives as Maximus is a welcome step to take.

Foster Social Connections

We humans are social creatures. We love interaction, conversations, friendships and more. Even if you have a team of self-confession introverts, you’ll know they love to feel a part of something bigger than themselves. Fostering social connections in the workplace can greatly improve employee wellbeing. You can put more emphasis on connection with one another through team-building activities, social events, or volunteer opportunities.

Create a Positive Work Environment

We all love a compliment from time to time. It gives us a huge sense of satisfaction that the work we’re producing is making an impact and is appreciated. A positive work environment can have a significant impact on employee well-being. You can easily foster a culture of positivity and respect in the workplace by recognising and celebrating employee achievements, encouraging open communication, and providing opportunities for growth and development.

Encourage Learning and Development

Learning and development can improve employee satisfaction and motivation, we love to know we’re pushing the ceiling above us to reach new heights. Encourage employees to pursue learning opportunities, such as workshops, conferences, or online courses. You can also offer training and development programs to help employees grow and advance in their careers.

Bring nature into the office

Would you rather sit at a desk in a blank, white, sterile room with no life or would you prefer to see splashes of green from succulents and plants to breathe life into a room? We know our answer. The benefits of having plants in the office are well documented, such as in this 2015 study on the physiological and physchological stress reducing from interaction with indoor plants. Plants offer the chance to create calmer workplace environments with improvements of well-being scores from team members.

Take the time during Mental Health Awareness Week this May to assess your workplace environment and how your can support your teams well-being. Sometimes one small act, can make the biggest difference. Not just to productivity, but to your people.

We’re always running workshops with different aims such as employee wellbeing, breathing techniques to reduce stress, and more thanks to our incredible Well-being Warriors who hold expert knowledge on their core subjects. If you want to find out more about the packages we run, you can download your copy of the Be In Your Element Elements Pack.