To start, corporations today are playing by the wrong rulebook; curiously, they assume offering health insurance and other surface level (passive, albeit helpful) programs will make their people “well.”

This playbook needs to be rewritten. 2020 was proof that we are behind the eight ball on addressing individual and collective physical and mental health.

However, we’re not suggesting that each and every company has a yoga instructor, therapist, performance coach, and nutritionist on staff to support on a daily basis (although that would be pretty cool).

Not every company has the capability to offer free meals, childcare services, and nap pods to everyone, but there are a few pillar elements of corporate wellness that every company can follow.

“By creating a corporate culture that values wellness, that truly cares for the proactive wellbeing of their employees, leaders and employees will feel empowered to practice self-care, which creates a downstream ROI on both the bottom line of the business and the bottom line of employee health.”

Corporate Wellness Statement #1:

“Wellness is a foundational pillar to long-term corporate financial success.”

Yes, happy, healthy, productive employees are good for business. It seems obvious, yet we leave everyone to figure their wellness out alone.

We spend so much time and energy at work — why do we still think “work/life balance” is a real thing? You are living your life while at work; your emotions, energy, passion, purpose, and happiness are not mutually exclusive from work to home.

Corporate Wellness Statement #2:

“Wellness starts top down; it must not only be recognized as important, but truly valued as a vital part of caring for employees. This starts with leadership.”

The people at the top (of every team) set the example. For some reason Corporate America has manufactured the feeling that “everything is due tomorrow.” This creates a boundary problem, which has been exacerbated since early 2020. If you’d like your employees to unwind, you can’t email them at 11PM asking for something that’s suddenly due at 6AM (cue the eye roll from the manager that thinks every deadline is life or death…). Leadership must set the tone and clearly lay out what is important and why, and then respect the means by which people get there.

 

Corporate Wellness Statement #3:

“Wellness must be woven into the fabric of corporate culture.”

Day-to-day shows of respect must be made for individual and team self-care. This includes the way teams communicate, problem solve, and handle dispute resolution, all the way to setting work boundaries, defining “work hours”, and taking simple exercise breaks. Are my actions as a leader creating a culture where people are happy, healthy, and productive? A missing link in that trio may create short-term results but will come at the expense of long-term success.

 

Corporate Wellness Statement #4:

“Performance stress is inevitable; in fact, it’s necessary. Learn how to effectively handle it and make positive changes to unhealthy practices.”

Eustress is good, distress is not. We need performance stress; it shows that we care about our work and that it is important. We also need deadlines (see “Parkinson’s Law”). What we don’t need are the unhealthy practices of creating more stress than is necessary without supplying strategies or an environment to handle it. High performance work environments can be great, but it’s also easy for them to turn toxic and cause high rates of burnout (some unavoidable due to the nature of the work but many avoidable due to poor corporate wellness cultures).

 

Corporate Wellness Statement #5:

“Individual > Team > Division > Company > Economy.”

Our individual actions have ripple effects in that direction. The wellness “butterfly effect” starts with individual wellbeing and grows to create a corporate collective wellbeing.

A corporate culture is made up of how it’s individual parts think, act, behave, and perform. It fosters a culture of wellbeing then starts with a focus on individual wellness (physical and mental health) and grows to support a broader culture of group wellness (communication, social support, motivation, accountability, loyalty, and team dynamics). We must hold both the individual and the group accountable, simultaneously, while also also supporting an environment to be able to do so in a healthy way.

So, if you’re interested to have Live Better provide corporate wellness services to your company, please send us an email at hello@livebetterco.org. We can provide talks, classes, coaching, events, challenges, workout and mindfulness programs, along with developing any number of custom requests.

It’s time to #WorkBetter.