Corporate Wellness Is Crucial To Your Business. Learn Why!

It is no secret that your physical health has a real impact on your mental wellbeing. However, most people only ever see that fact revolving around their personal lives. They rarely consider the impact that health has on their job. It is easy to stay in a rut of believing a job is separate to the rest of our lives. Some people even begin to accept it as the norm. That leads us to think that the only way to remove the feeling is to get a new job. The reality is much different to that, though. Corporate wellness is an often forgotten or overlooked factor to how people feel about, and perform in, their jobs. The biggest question, though, is why do people overlook corporate wellness?

If Corporate Wellness Is So Important, Who Do People Overlook It?

The world is moving at a faster pace now than it has ever been before.  Technology advancements in the past 100 years have moved so far, so quickly, that we now have a “duty” to do as much work as we possibly can in as little time as viable.

Of course, businesses are always going to be concerned with gaining more sales, more efficiency, and less downtime. But that leads people into thinking that they have to work every hour available. The primary problem is that people rarely take the time to stop and think about their health and of those around them. Things are not going to slow down; we are not going to gain an easier life suddenly; we have to aim for, and work for it.

So Why Is Corporate Wellness Essential?

There are many reasons why we should consider corporate wellness a pivotal aspect of any business. By the time you have read through these points, we are certain that you will understand how healthy staff can help you and your business.

Injury and Illness Reduction

Having a happy, healthy workforce will inevitably increase your work efficiency in more way than one. However, injury and illness is, by far, the most important factor that you need to consider. There are two ways in which injury and illness can make a negative impact on your business:

• Absenteeism. – Most people in management roles are concerned with absenteeism; people not coming into work when they are ill. That is understandable, the more people off work, the less work gets completed. Sales will drop, bottom-line profit will fall, workloads will increase for the staff still in work, and morale will inescapably plunge.
• Presenteeism. – A lot fewer managers are concerned with the lesser understood reason for injury and illness-related workplace inefficiency – presenteeism. However, that issue will provide you with the same consequences as absenteeism, if not more.

Increase Employee Focus

Focus is not something that people are inherently born with; it is a nurtured ability. That can be a difficult statement to comprehend. However, as Jamesclear has said:

Focus can only occur when we have said yes to one option and no to all other options.

When you need your staff to focus on the tasks that you give to them, you are asking them to say yes to that, and no to everything else. But that “everything else” can be a huge list of things, such as personal thoughts and worries, health issues, depression, etc.

How do you gain that focus from your employees? 

One interesting statistic shows that 79% of people who quit their jobs do it because of a feeling of lack of appreciation.

That lack of appreciation may come from many things. However, offering your staff a way to deal with their other problems and worries, such as health benefits and corporate wellness programs can provide a feeling of appreciation. Furthermore, with fewer personal issues, and knowing there is support when they need it, people can focus on tasks that are required.

Higher Morale

Having people at work when they should be, and happy when they are there creates a breeding ground for morale. There are thousands of publications that cite the fact that high morale is beneficial to the workplace and productivity. However, one thing that people tend to forget is that morale is a compounding feeling. It is a little like interest in a bank account. A little is good, but regular boosts in morale can surpass any individual “team-building” exercise that you carry out once a year, often at Chrismas.

Even the most basic studies on happiness treatments, as the conductors call them, can prove that productivity increases with so-called “happiness shocks.” While the study in question is little more than five years old now, people have not changed in terms of how they react to good and bad events.

In the study, the researchers decided to use basic additions to prove that happiness has a direct correlation to ability. In one of the experiments, the results were quite apparent:

• Additions completed correctly before happiness treatment: 16
• Addition attempts before treatment: 19
• Additions completed correctly after happiness treatment: 18
• Addition attempts after treatment: 21

While the improvement may seem marginal, at 2-3 increase in both attempts and correct answers, we need to remember that morale and happiness are compounding. Therefore, the more of these small increases in morale, the more productive the workforce.

Lower Staff Turnover

Look back at the percentage (79%) of people who leave their job because of a feeling of unappreciation. Then consider the fact that people who are happy in their jobs stay there, it is obvious why we would want to increase happiness.

People are more equipt to deal with pressures of their job the longer they have been in them. Therefore, if you have a workforce that has an average serving time with your company of only a few months, you have a higher demand in physical and monetary resources, such as training and correction of errors.

Keeping your staff with you for longer will also allow you to build on your capabilities by diversifying your business strategy. That is a difficult, if not impossible thing to do when you have to train new staff regularly.

Higher Recruitment Possibilities

The internet has made job-hunting an easy task. However, a task that is just as easy, through companies like GlassDoor, is seeing what people think of the job that they have, and the employer that they work for. If you are a company who places little to no emphasis on your corporate wellness, and the feelings of your employees, then you are likely to receive bad reviews by the 79% of people who leave your company.

Therefore, when you have higher positive ratings, people will actively look for positions within your company, instead of looking for industry positions and noticing that you have one available. That can lead to a higher application rate, more people to choose from, thus a higher calibre of employee.

Cost Reduction

Happiness and wellness have huge monetary benefits. Of course, the first thing that you may think about is time lost at work. Both absenteeism and presenteeism are huge monetary burdens on the economy and businesses. The cost to Australian businesses alone, at the time of publication in Yahoo finance, was a colossal $44 billion for absenteeism, and $35 billion for presenteeism. Health insurance is another high cost that businesses contend with. If you have fewer people off work, there are fewer costs in insurance.  Most of which could be regained through healthier employees.

Furthermore, over 56% of people in Australia alone value a great place to work more than the money that it earns them. That does not mean that you can go giving pay cuts to everyone and try to make them happy. However, what it does suggest is that you may be able to create a happy workplace in return for not providing as big a pay rise. Or, on the other hand, you may be able to entice more experienced workers in your sector by showing them, through reviews online, or corporate wellness packages, that their happiness is a genuine concern of yours, and that the money is lower for a good reason.

The Way To Increase Corporate Wellness

Unfortunately, there is no magic pill that you can give to your staff to increase their happiness. It is just not that simple. Happiness is as individual as you and I, in terms of it being dependant on what you are unhappy about. What we can tell you though, is that the single annual team-building exercise is a long way off. It is often too far for people to consider as a real benefit for working hard and staying in a position that makes them unhappy.

Here at Happy Melon, we have been developing one of the most comprehensive corporate wellness plans available in Australia. We work with your employees to help them gain back a sense of enjoyment in their workplace, allowing them to be the best versions of themselves.

The personal development and support of your employees is our passion. Our passion is what can turn your jobs into the passion of your employees.

Continue what you do best and leave the rest to us. Click here for more information.