Happy employees are more productive and more likely to spread the word on your organization’s success. Earlier this week, we posted a blog on why employee wellbeing should be on the agenda of an Internal Communications Manager. Today, we’ll give you 10 secrets on pursuing employee wellbeing.
1. Increase employee happiness
Earlier research has shown three levels of happiness:
Pleasure – enjoyment, delights, liking something
Passion – a more sustained level of happiness delivered by doing something you like
Purpose – the highest level of happiness, which gives you energy on a daily base.
It’s difficult to pursue a general purpose since every single employee has individual interests and goals. You’ll first need to gain insight into your employees’ needs before you can deliver on the aspects that will let them reach happiness.
2. Facilitate sports for everyone
Every employee should be able to practice his or her favorite sport. You can support this need by giving discount on a gym or sports club subscription. Even fancier, you might consider to build your own corporate office gym so employees can blow of some steam during the day or work out before or after work.
3. Provide healthy snacks in the workplace
It’s obvious but provide healthy snacks in the workplace! When providing healthy snacks, your employees will eat healthier meals during the day than when they have to take care of their own meals themselves. Healthy snacks are of course fruit and vegetables but you can also consider to provide vegan snacks and nuts.
4. Organize gatherings out of the office
Get out of the office every once in a while; go outside. Fun gatherings you could think of are: joint sports days, a meditation course or a dance competition.
5. Focus on personal development
Zoom in on individual goals (work-related or not) and support your employees in reaching these goals. For instance, by investing in education or giving extra time off so an employee can make the (world) trip of his/her life.
6. Stimulate breaks during the workday
Many tests prove that employees can only stay focused on a task for 45 minutes. After that, their productivity drops drastically. So, you could stimulate breaks during the workday. For instance, by narrowcasting a time-out message on an employee’s computer screen or remotely locking the pc if someone is using it for too long.
7. Hold non-sitting meetings
When you hold stand-up meetings instead of sitting meetings, another part of the brain will become active and your employees might become more creative. Therefore, it’s good to have stand-up meetings every now and then. Or, you could go out for a walk.
8. Improve the work/life balance
Nowadays, our life is busy and multidisciplinary; work is important but family, friends and sports are important as well. Enabling your employees to have flexible work hours will empower them to combine everything that’s important in their lives.
9. Stimulate vacation
Make sure your employees take holidays. They need a break every once in a while to recharge and make sure they are full of energy when they will come back. And of course, they are more productive and happy in the workplace too.
10. Reward performance
One of the key drivers of employee wellbeing (and engagement) is recognition. Reward your employees’ performance. Make sure your employees know their hard work is appreciated.
Keen on finding out more on how to drive employee wellbeing and employee engagement with internal communications? Don’t hesitate to give us a call, we’d be more than happy to have a brainstorm with you!
