Posts from — May 2009

Workplace wellness is in the process of evolving.

Early efforts to create healthy workplaces focused on safety at the workplace and injury prevention for employees.

More recently, programs are designed to assist  staff members to choose healthier behaviors like being more physically active or quitting smoking. Campaigns to spread awareness, educational sessions to increase knowledge, opportunities to acquire new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for staff members to make healthy choices are often included. This approach is taken because the workplace is a good way to reach individuals, since most adult Canadians invest a sizable part of their day at work.

While safety and lifestyle programs are two aspects that contribute to the health of employees, workplace wellness is more effective when a third factor is brought into the equation-the environment at work.

How the workplace impacts health.

Increasingly, it is recognized that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When people are satisfied with their job, they are more advantageous and tend to be healthier. When employees feel that the environment at work is negative, they feel stressed. Stress has a large effect on employee mental and physical health, and in turn, on productivity.

Consultant Graham Lowe has identified five components of workplace culture that directly affect employees’ health and the health of the organization overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. The underlying idea is that companies must truly are concerned about the wellness of their employees.

Employers today who want to attract and retain great staff members have leaders who be aware of the importance between employee satisfaction and employee health and believe that workplace wellness is a organization plan.  Their management practices include making reasonable demands on time and energy, involving staff members in decision making, rewarding work well done, openly communicating, and offering support to balance life at home and work.

Employers know that staff members are looking for jobs that compensate well, have great benefits, are interesting, and include great health and safety programs. So in today’s competitive hiring market, it’s become more important than ever for employers to enhance job satisfaction and be sure that staff members enjoy being on the job. Workplace wellness benefits both employers and staff members.

How does workplace wellness profit the company?

A workplace wellness plan can help a company to:

• attract and keep employees;
• lower the expenditures of disability, prescriptions, and absenteeism;
• decrease the effects of a stressful workplace;
• lower health expenditures or keep them contained; and
• better morale by planning a happy, supportive environment.

How Do Worksite Health Promotion Programs Profit staff members?

staff members of companies that have a Worksite Wellness Program are likely to have:

• increased awareness and knowledge of ways to improve their health;
• a better (less stressful) workplace;
• increased protection from injury;
• improved health and wellness;
• higher morale and greater job satisfaction;
• increased productiveness and performance at work;
• reduced personal medical care expenditures; and
• a more relaxed/flexible approach to health problems.

Both employers and staff members have a responsibility for organizing a healthy workplace. Workers are expected to arrive at work in good health, and the employer is expected to offer an environment that allows staff members to maintain good health, enjoy their work, and contribute to the company’s success.

Workplace wellness is much more than a “lunch and learn” program. It’s about creating a “people first” approach to doing business. It’s about taking care of staff members, establishing a beneficial work environment, and paying attention to the factors that keep staff members healthy and happy at work. A good Employee Health Promotion Program has an impact on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellness.