Employees are the heart of your business. Ensuring their well-being should be a top concern for any company. More often than not, businesses lose focus on the health aspect of their employees, which can be devastating. Unhealthy workforce often leads to lower productivity and higher losses.
Hence, investing in employee wellness programs is a must for every business that aims for success. To identify the importance of a wellness program in your office, you need to understand the benefits it offers. Here are five benefits you can entitle with a wellness program:
Health Improvement
Physical and mental health issues in an organization are more common than people believe they are. Most of these occur due to sitting for too long, work stress, workload and so on. An employee wellness program can help improve the overall mental and physical health of your workforce during office hours.
A wellness program can teach your employees that it is necessary to do a bit of physical activity occasionally. Doing regular movement such as talking a short walk after sitting for a while can be beneficial, as it improves physical health by regular blood flow through the body and refreshes the mind as well.
Further, having healthy habits in the office also protects your employees from any health risks and can also teach them to let go of the bad habits that can be dangerous for their health, such as smoking etc.
Lower Risk
When your employees are following healthy habits with wellness programs, the chances of getting sick is reduced significantly. A lot of physical health issues often occur due to limited movement or activity.
Since employees are sitting in front of their computers for long durations, it reduces muscle movements and blood flow. With a proper employee wellness program, you are ensuring that your employees are following the habits to keep themselves healthy.
Higher Engagement
If your employees are suffering from health issues, whether it’s physical and mental, it will continuously divert their focus. When your employees are not focused, the overall engagement of employees will decrease during the work hours.
Lower employee engagement can often lead to massive losses for a business. Investing in an employee wellness program will ensure that such health issues are averted in time, which gives a significant boost to employee engagement in the office.
Low Stress
Workplace stress is real, especially when there is a hefty amount of workload on your shoulders. It is easy to get burnt-out in a high-stress environment. A burnt-out employee is no good for any business, and too much work-related stress can lead to departure as well, i.e. higher employee turnover.
To manage employee turnover, investing in a good employee wellness program is necessary. Not only will it teach the employees how to work through the stress, but it will also help them improve their everyday performance as well.
A program like this can include teaching employees to mediate or exercise in short bursts to manage work-related stress. Simple exercises such as stretching can also help you loosen-up some stiff ends.
Reduced Absenteeism
If you regularly see your employees getting sick, it is either due to health issues or low motivation. Excessive work-related stress can be the primary cause of the latter. Higher absenteeism can lead to problems such as staff shortage, delayed deadlines and so on.
Keeping your employees stress free is essential to motivate them for work. Well planned corporate wellness programs can aid them with such issues. When your employees feel good, they are motivated to work, thus reducing the absenteeism ratio significantly.
