21 Cost-Effective Wellness At Workplace Ideas For 2021
Ushering wellness at workplace has become a matter of importance for employers around the world. The reason behind it is the ever-increasing workload which is now taking a toll on all the employees' health status by exhausting them and distorting their sleep cycle. All of these combined have increased the health risk factor and hiked up the employee health care costs.
Many organizations worldwide have started adopting workplace wellness measures that benefit the workforce and promote better company culture to mitigate such issues.
These measures form the backbone of corporate wellness programs to improve employees' health behaviors to keep them fit and engaged. And most of these measures are very cost-effective and feasible for organizations of all sizes.
Before proceeding to some of these cost-effective workplace wellness measures, let’s have a quick look into what helps organizations in return.
How Workplace Wellness Programs Help You?
Employee wellness or a corporate wellness program is an effective way to promote health and wellness in the workplace. Such programs help companies battle the increasing rate of employee health problems and ensure the wellbeing of every employee.
At the same time, it encourages employees to take up a healthy lifestyle for positive health outcomes. An efficient workplace wellness program helps you bring down employee absenteeism rates arising due to health issues. Thus, boosting their productivity and saving your company a lot in return.
Here are the 21 Ways to Promote Wellness at Workplace
1. Monday Meditation
Everyone hates Mondays, and your employees are no different. They hate this particular day the most. And letting your employees start their week in despair may harm their productivity.
For avoiding this, you can plan and organize small meditation sessions on Mondays. These meditation sessions will help your employees manage the work slumps that they frequently face. Thus, helping them stay focused for the rest of the day and positively impact their mental health. Similarly, you can emphasize different ways to incorporate wellness at the workplace for the rest of the week.
2. Health Articles and Newsletters
Awareness is the greatest agent for change. Everything you want to do starts with creating awareness. Starting health campaigns in the organization takes a lot of effort in the beginning. And the main challenge here is motivating the employees to take a closer look at their health. You can do this through health awareness campaigns by sending health articles and newsletters daily to their emails as a part of your workplace health promotion activities.
3. Healthy Potlucks
As the saying goes, “We are what we eat.” Organizing healthy potlucks once every month can be a great addition to your employee wellness program. Here, instead of bringing fatty and junk meals, you can encourage employees to get nutritious food. Hosting such events frequently will help your employees acquire healthy eating habits. Also, a potluck is a unique way of increasing camaraderie among all the employees, thus strengthening workplace relationships.
Furthermore, you can complement these potlucks with different health themes every month like
Go Green
Protein Power Meal
Fruity Delights
Beat the Carbs
Say Bye Calories etc.
4. Embrace Health For A Cause
An effective way to encourage employees to embrace a healthy lifestyle is by associating it with a social cause. Merging health promotion programs with social causes gives the participants a chance and opportunity to give back to society. This also strengthens the company's stand on corporate social responsibility commitments.
You can support social causes by organizing workplace health challenges like
Corporate walkathons
Marathons
Cyclotrons
PushUps for uplifting society etc.
Moreover, you can also opt for giving your employees free passes for participating in community health events.
5. Health Ambassador
You will always find someone at your workplace which is both health-conscious and successful at the same time. These employees’ can act as role models for all others and encourage them towards a healthy life. Similarly, you can assign them the title of “Health Ambassadors” and let them be the face of good health in the organization.
Also, you can hold health challenges within your organization for your employees to grab the title.
6. Cycle to Work
As employers, you can encourage your employees to cycle to work instead of bringing their vehicles. This is feasible based on how much distance an employee commutes to reach the office. If most of your employees live within close vicinity of the organization, then implementing this will be fruitful.
With this, you are also helping them curb their carbon footprint on the environment.
Similarly, you can also organize short cycling tours and cyclotrons amongst your employees with meaningful rewards for the best performers. This will further encourage employees to improve their health through cycling.
7. Get Employees on their Legs
Here, I’m not suggesting any punishment for your employees.
Working while standing would help them to retain normal blood flow and also improves their body posture. On the contrary, seating for longer hours straight away without much physical movement can give rise to various health issues.
To overcome this, you can arrange a few standing desks at your office that positively impacts employee health, as found in studies. Moreover, the risk of fatigue arising due to sitting for long hours without any significant body movement decreases.
8. Smoke Cessation Campaigns
Smoking is a pervasive habit among professionals nowadays. And the reason for this, as cited by many, is the ever-increasing workload. It is a known fact that nicotine is not a medicine; instead, it adds fuel to heart and lung-related health problems. However, a smoke cessation campaign at the workplace can help your employees overcome their habit of smoking.
Here are some tips for effectively implementing such campaigns
Create awareness about the adverse effects of smoking
Displaying possible ways to leave smoking
Declaring no-smoking zones around the campus
Hiring a life coach for taking smoke cessation sessions
Incentivizing an employees’ efforts to leave smoking
Encouraging employees to give up their smoking habits can help them achieve better stamina, improve lung functioning, mitigate chronic diseases, and more.
9. Use a Corporate Health App
The problems related to workplace wellness have risen steeply over the last few years. And owing to today’s advanced technology, the solution for an effective employee wellness program is now at everyone’s fingertips.
Combining health and safety simultaneously, Vantage Fit gives accurate data, enabling the user to safely indulge in any physical activity. This app is also packed with many built-in health features that can help them enjoy good physical health.
The app also facilitates employers to hold health contests and create challenges like walkathons, marathons, etc., for their employees on the go easily. Thus, helping employers bring wellness to their workplace.
10. Allow Flexible Work Hours
Most workplace wellness issues arise due to the excessive workload that an employee has to bear throughout the day. This situation is backed by the lack of flexible work schedules, giving employees no time to rejuvenate themselves.
As an employer, allowing your employees to have flexible work hours can be a huge step towards implementing proper workplace wellness. Having flexible work hours enables employees to have their time to use for anything like getting some rest or hitting the gym. This also makes the employee feel good about their work and helps them achieve a perfect work-life balance.
As an employer, allowing your employees to have flexible work hours can be a huge step towards implementing proper workplace wellness. Having flexible work hours allows an employee to have their time to use for anything like getting some rest or hitting the gym. This also makes the employee feel good about their work and helps them achieve a perfect work-life balance.
11. Essentials of Budgeting
Workplace wellness is also related to employees’ lifestyle behaviors. These behaviors also include ones’ financial habits like
Spending.
Earning.
Investments in essentials like health insurance.
Debts to pay.
Other personal investments.
Mismanagement between them sometimes can cause a work-life imbalance from a financial point of view. This may again lead to stress, anxiety, sleep deprivation, and heart diseases. Giving your employees sessions on budgeting can enable them to maintain good financial wellbeing.
12. Pace Up with the Boss
The will to ensure a healthy workplace should always come from the top levels of the organization. Employees look up to their seniors for motivation about everything at the workplace. Similarly, you can inspire them to take up a healthy lifestyle by throwing a challenge at them. Arranging walks or runs with the seniors at the workplace is a very subtle way to do so.
This will give the employees’ two things i.e.
A chance to be at par with their seniors and engage with them in healthy competition.
Improve professional relationships’ which is essential for growth within an organization.
If the senior peers embrace a healthy lifestyle, their subordinates will also feel motivated to follow in their footsteps.
13. Walk and Talk
Walking is a good exercise that helps a person keep his/her mind and body fit in every sense. Again, walking is an exercise that can be done anytime, anywhere, and irrespective of anything. You can adopt the same as a part of the health and wellness program in the form of “Walk and Talk.”
Walk and Talk is holding important meetings or discussions while taking a walk instead of sitting in a closed room. Walking a commendable distance daily helps keep a check on the calorie levels and improves a person’s stamina level.
14. Stairs to a Good Health
Climbing up and down the stairs can make you burn some extra calories. It also improves vital body parts like the heart, lungs, limbs, and joints. Encouraging employees to skip using lifts and use the staircase can be very effective in improving employee health. It’s the most cost-effective solution one can incorporate for ensuring wellness at workplace. Also, you can have challenges like “Stairs to Health,” where you can track and reward the employees taking the most steps to motivate them and encourage a healthy lifestyle.
15. Encourage Work Breaks
Employees’ sitting at their desks for long periods without any significant body movement may succumb to specific health problems. These may comprise of the following issues like
Eye Strains.
Backaches.
Headaches.
Muscle Cramps.
Fatigue etc.
Letting the employees take short breaks between work helps mitigate these problems by allowing them to rejuvenate.
16. Subsidised Gym Memberships
Though I have already said workplace wellness is more than gym memberships and healthy snacks, they count on the list too. Building an in-house health center can be a costly affair keeping in mind the maintenance cost and hiring a professional to take sessions. However, you can opt for partnering up with a nearby gym to provide your employees with subsidized memberships. This, again, can be an excellent point to attract top talents to work for the organization.
17. Plantation at the Workplace
Wellness at workplace also has a lot to do with the surrounding environment where employees sit and work. Also, it is a known fact how a clean and green environment positively impacts one’s health and wellbeing. For ensuring the same, you can put up some plants around the office space alleviating the work environment, which is crucial for uplifting employee health.
Furthermore, plants help in keeping the surroundings free from toxic gases. Thus, letting the employees feel rejuvenated with some fresh air always around them.
18. In-house Library
Reading is another excellent way to rejuvenate the mind and feel good. Facilitating your employees with an in-house library will let them find some quality escape time from their busy schedules. Encouraging reading habits amongst your employees will also help them in the following ways like
Reduction in stress level.
A better sense of vocabulary.
Strong analytical skills.
Improved memory retention and more.
19.Observe Health-Related Occasions
Health-related occasions are celebrated to raise awareness about various diseases and vital body parts. These include days like
World AIDS Day (On 1st December)
Mental Health Day (On 10th October)
World Heart Day (On 29th September)
World Cancer Day (On 4th February) and more.
Observing such occasions at the workplace creates awareness among the employees about the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Furthermore, it also adds to the vibrant work culture within the organization.
20. Sports and Wellness Activities
Having some sports and wellness activities like chess boards, checkers, carrom boards, table tennis, etc., is another great way to bring wellness at workplace. This will help your employees to rejuvenate themselves between their work. Engaging them in such activities will keep them away from being idle during their free time or spending it on smoke breaks. Having indoor games also improves workplace camaraderie amongst the employees.
21. Yoga Fridays
Let’s wrap up the week here.
If you want your employees to enjoy sound mental health and good physical health, then facilitating yoga sessions is the way to go.
Organizing yoga sessions is one of the most feasible workplace wellness tactics that you can put in place. As an employer, you can plan yoga sessions every Friday, anytime during breaks.
You can search for a yoga practitioner from among the employees to head the sessions. Or, you can hire a pro for taking yoga sessions of your employees. Yoga brings mindfulness, and letting your employees enjoy their weekends carefree is an excellent way to wrap up a hectic week.
Conclusion
Wellness at workplace shouldn’t remain limited to providing employees with health insurance or free medical checkups. A healthy workplace is genuinely achieved when employees' direct participation in programs improves their wellbeing. Adopting a proper workplace wellness program is vital for ensuring a healthy workplace. Furthermore, only happy and healthy employees will perform better, thereby bringing the best out of your workforce. Thus, putting in place an effective employee wellness program has now become the need of the hour.