“We can mistakenly think that mental health is about treating mental illness, but this is only half-baked. Mental health is also about building good mental and emotional health, it’s about practicing mental health self-care and enhancing wellbeing.” – Thomas E. Rojo Aubrey
The majority of our waking hours during the week are spent earning a living. Therefore, it makes sense, considering that the majority of our time is spent at work, that we prioritise our workplace wellbeing. When we skate over wellbeing at work, and to not give it value, we risk condemning ourselves to spending a huge chunk of our life feeling undervalued, unfulfilled, or, plainly, unhappy.
High standards of wellbeing in a workplace primarily contribute to the overall happiness of your and your colleagues, but the side effects such as positive atmosphere, increased connection to the work and improved productivity are also worth their weight I gold. Therefore, prioritising employee wellbeing is integral to providing conscious leadership.
What Makes Workplace Wellbeing So Important?
Word of Mouth
Word of mouth is a bigger contributor to success than ever before; if you have a reputation for being a receptive and supportive employer, then people will talk. This boosts your company’s image and increases the chances of you attracting the best and brightest candidates for your business.
Loyal Employees
Happy employees stay put! High employee turnover puts a huge strain resources, and experience within a company is invaluable when building a trustworthy team This kind of loyalty is built on coordination, communication and respect; all essential ingredients in a workforce’s wellbeing and for conscious business practice.
Connection to the Work
People who are happy and healthy are much more likely to be fully engaged with their job. If their environment is designed with their wellbeing in mind, and their workplace is somewhere that they feel supported and appreciated, then their drive to do their best work is very likely to be better.
Output and Efficiency
As your employees and colleagues are happier and therefore more connected to their work, you will moist likely find that output and the quality of the work produced will see a boost. Happy people work, but harder necessarily, but certainly ‘better’ and with more enthusiasm!
How to Improve Workplace Wellbeing
Openness and Flexibility
Work/life balance is more important than ever. Work isn’t everything, and we all have lives and responsibilities outside the boundaries of our jobs. Being sensitive to this fact, and open to working with your employees to ensure that their job is not putting undue strain on other part of their life is essential to workplace wellbeing and good conscious business practice.
A Comfortable Work Environment
If your place of work lacks natural light, or is a bit drab and rough around the edges, then you and your team might be suffering for it. There might not be much you can do about natural light, apart from decluttering a few windowsills! However, what you can do is improve the artificial lighting, brighten up the place with a fresh or dynamic paint job and add some plant life. This should help to lift the spirits on the daily.
Communication
Open communication keeps your team connected. It ensures that everyone is in the loop, and that everyone feels heard. Many businesses have benefitted from implementing specific open communication policies and guidelines. Communication guidelines might seem a little, shall we say, ‘un-organic’. However, they merely serve as a foundation upon which to create a workplace-wide habit of openness and clarity.
Clean Air
Plant life improves the quality of the air, as do air conditioning and air purifying units. More fresh air and more oxygen has a direct positive effect on brain function. If you don’t already have provisions for ensuring good air quality in your workplace, then now might be a good time to think about it!
Ultimately, looking after employee wellbeing and workplace resilience among your workforce is all about listening and empathy. Understand that happy individual’s make a happy team, which should, in turn, make you happier as well!
By Chris Thomson
Looking after your employees in terms of their emotional resilience is a cornerstone of conscious leadership. A conscious business values its employees, and gleans its success from this core value. Here are a few tips on how to get started on your path to conscious leadership… 5 Tips for Manifesting Conscious Leadership
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