Take 1 Action Step Today For Better Employee Wellness Tomorrow

For this month’s blog, we are looking back on some of our best content. The internet is a fantastic place, but unfortunately, even with all the incredible content that’s out there, it’s so easy to read an article, say, “Huh, that’s neat,” and then never take any action steps.

Today, I want you to get out of this blog to prioritize taking just one action step (or at the very least) this week. Come back to this blog again if you need another action step. Taking the first step isn’t easy, but it will be worth it to have your employees and your company prioritize their personal health and wellness.

Mass Resignation

In August, we covered this mass resignation and what caused it. It was assumed that since COVID, people had re-taken stock in their lives and the impermanence of everything and made changes to help their work/life balance trend more favorable toward the life side. Women, more than men, made changes to their work situation because of the loss of childcare. We know that employee turnover is costly. Still, now, people are making industry and career changes at unprecedented rates for various reasons.

Potential action step: Open up a line of communication stating clearly that you’d like to hear ideas from employees to make sure they feel valued. While you can’t give everyone a salary raise, is there a different benefit you could offer, such as more sick days, a gym membership discount, etc.?

Creating a Return-to-Work Culture of Health

Our September blog centered on reducing employee anxiety while most offices returned to in-person work. Our three solutions were: offering autonomy, addressing physical safety concerns, and communicating policy changes as soon as possible. Employees deserve as much time as possible to arrange for childcare, figure out how to keep their families safe and make independent choices about how their daily work is accomplished.

Potential action step: Now that we are over 2 years out from the initial lockdowns of Covid, it would be a great time to survey employees anonymously about their perspectives in terms of how they feel about different aspects of their health and wellbeing.

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Designing Virtual Learning Meetings that Foster Wellbeing

Now that we all know the ins and outs of how to attend a Zoom meeting simply, it’s vital that our learning continues in this area. Technology and video conferences aren’t going away any time soon! Our tips from October included:

Get valuable feedback in anonymous surveys
Try an old-fashioned conference call for short meetings
Use the hand raise feature so no one gets unnecessarily interrupted
Use break out rooms for brainstorming
Effectively utilize before/after meeting times to connect with employees who may be more affected than others by the meeting’s announcements.

Potential action step: Use one of these methods during your next video meeting and reflect afterward on its results.

Best Ways to Support Employees’ Mental Health and Wellbeing

As a leader, mental health for your employees is invaluable. Besides making your employees aware of the mental health support systems available, what else can you do? Figure out different cost-effective ways to support all the dimensions of wellness. Leaders always influence others–use yours by modeling self-care by using the days off provided for you. You (and your employees) can’t be at your best if you never rest. Any action steps you take will help your business have workers who are productive and satisfied with their job and let those workers go home to their families and friends and live a rich life filled with contentment.

Potential action step: Reflect on what support systems you currently offer your employees for their mental wellbeing and what would make logical sense to add to that system.