How healthy is your workplace? Could you do more to improve wellbeing for your employees?
Today I have a guest post by a student to share with you. Jamie Costello @jamie88costello is studying Business in Manchester here in the UK and has written for the All Things IC blog to share his thoughts on this topic.
As part of his course, he’s building a writing portfolio to help with his studies and uses his knowledge gained from the course as well as through work experience to help collate his articles. When he’s not studying he enjoys playing Sports and reading autobiographies in his spare time.
Changes you can make to your work environment to improve wellbeing
Jamie Costello
The wellbeing of staff is extremely important in a workplace environment, especially when it comes to Internal Communication. Communicating well within a business helps teams and employees achieve goals and makes sure every idea or project is aligned with one another.
Identifying opportunities that can help to improve workplace wellbeing will be the first step towards creating a healthier and motivated workplace environment.
Here are a few steps that you can suggest as an employee or implement as an employer that can help towards improving the wellbeing of fellow colleagues.
Encourage healthy habits
Many office environments have the benefit of kitchens or spaces for eating provided in their commercial building. This can help employees and fellow colleagues to benefit from a healthier lifestyle by adopting a balanced diet where they can bring in prepared food from home and exercising regularly.
Consider foods that can have an effect on productivity negativelyand look to cut them out of your diet. For example, energy drinks can only boost energy for a certain period of time, before it can have employees crashing after a couple of hours. Instead, replace sugary drinks with water to keep hydrated throughout the day.
Maintain good relationships
Healthy relationships within a business are good for promoting teamwork and active communication. Although completing work and tasks are important in the workplace, maintaining good relationships from managers right down to interns is essential.
Proactively getting along and involved with colleagues will help to improve the mood with those around you and prevents awkward conversations in and around the office.
If you find that there are certain people who you feel you don’t get along with, address the problem rather than keeping any issues you have bottled up. This way, you can get the issues out-of-the-way and build a relationship on honesty that is sure to be appreciated.
Keep a good work/life balance
Constantly being bogged down with work isn’t healthy from a physical and psychological point of view. It can lead to stress, exhaustion and constant negative thoughts about workplace issues. It’s important that colleagues and staff are able to maintain a good work/life balance so they can clear their head and enjoy moments in their life.
Regardless of how busy your schedule can be, make sure you’re able to set aside time to enjoy a little ‘me-time’ and get away from thoughts that concern work.
Create a healthy working space
Considering the majority of us spend an average of around nine hours a day at work, the environment in which you work in requires extra attention to detail to make sure it’s suitable for everyone to work in. In particular, the quality of air indoors can be a contributing factor to making sure colleagues and staff remain healthy.
Be sure that your steel ductwork pipes are cleaned regularly and work correctly and open windows often so that the air can circulate around the office. A valuable addition to office spaces are plants. They help to release oxygen in the air which can keep fresh air flowing throughout the office so look to invest an in a few. They can also create a more warming atmosphere around the place and add to the interior design of the office.
Have a platform for people to speak out
Most important of all is making sure that everyone feels confident enough to speak out about any concerns that they have. This can either be with an HR representative, a colleague or senior member of staff.
A workplace should have an interest in making sure that morale is high in the office and employees are able to stay happy.
If a business doesn’t offer this, it should in the employers’ interest to make sure changes are made so that productivity can remain high and business needs are met, especially in a business where communication is key. Steps such as introducing regular breaks, promotional incentives and flexible working hours are just some of the ways that can improve morale.
Post author: Jamie Costello.
Thank you Jamie. You can find him on Twitter @Jamie88costello or LinkedIn. Best of luck with your studies Jamie.
Further reading about wellbeing on the All Things IC blog
- A new model for engagement and wellbeing
- Link wellbeing and engagement to boost performance
- Why you need to focus on employee experience
- What does the future of employee engagement look like?
First published on the All Things IC blog 25 November 2018.
