Corporate Wellness Blog

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 support  staff members to choose healthier behaviors like being more physically active or stopping smoking. Campaigns to spread awareness, educational sessions to increase knowledge, opportunities to learn new skills, and changes to policies to make it easier for staff members to make healthy choices are frequently included. This approach is taken because the workplace is a good way to reach people, since most adult Canadians invest a large 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 agreed upon that the workplace itself has a powerful affect on people’s health. When individuals are satisfied with their job, they are more constructive and tend to be healthier. When workers feel that the environment at work is detrimental, they feel stressed. Stress has a large effect on employee mental and physical health, and in turn, on productiveness.

Consultant Graham Lowe has identified 5 components of workplace culture that directly affect employees’ health and the health of the corporation overall-credibility, respect, fairness, pride, and camaraderie. The underlying idea is that businesses must genuinely are concerned about the well-being of their workers.

Businesses today who want to attract and keep great workers have leaders who understand the association between employee satisfaction and employee health and believe that workplace wellness is a business plan.  Their management practices include making reasonable demands on time and energy, involving workers in decision making, rewarding work well done, openly communicating, and offering support to balance life at work and home.

Employers know that workers 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 valuable than ever for organizations to enhance job satisfaction and ensure that workers enjoy being on the job. Workplace wellness benefits both employers and workers.

How does workplace wellness benefit the corporation?

A workplace wellness program can help a corporation to:

• attract and keep staff members;
• lower the costs of disability, drugs, and absenteeism;
• reduce the effects of a stressful workplace;
• decrease health costs or keep them contained; and
• better morale by planning a happy, supportive environment.

How Do Worksite Health Promotion Programs Advance workers?

workers of corporations that have a Corporate Health Promotion Program are likely to have:

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

Both employers and employees have a responsibility for organizing a healthy workplace. Workers are expected to arrive at work in great health, and the company is expected to provide an environment that allows employees to maintain great 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 planning a “people first” approach to doing business. It’s about taking care of employees, instituting a positive work environment, and paying attention to the factors that keep employees healthy and happy at work. A good Worksite Health Promotion Program has an influence on employees’ mental, physical, emotional, social, and spiritual wellbeing.