Corporate Wellness Programmes
“Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive”
Jamais Cascio
To be successful in today’s world, businesses need to move to authentic, proactive wellbeing services for employees. Ones that work and are tailored to the needs of the employee!
In recent years the world has got much more complicated! Employees have higher and higher expectations on companies and more and more, want a complete package that isn’t solely about the money and the progression, but more and more about their overall wellbeing and working in a way that works best for them and their lifestyle! More and more, if they don’t get it, they will walk!
A lot has been written about our working habits — home vs the office and fixed hours vs a more flexible approach as examples — but one area that hasn’t been discussed in any great depth is the way that health support is provided to staff while they navigate challenging times.
The big issue with packaged healthcare provision is that it tends to be reactive rather than proactive. That is to say employers offer employees a bolt-on health-related perk that gives them access to a doctor when they get sick, a mental health talking service or an app to symptom-check and help to cover the cost of treatment or may offer them a medical check that is never utilised. In many cases the perk is never used by many members of staff. But those services won’t cut-it in the post-covid world and employee expectations are getting higher and higher, and it is now a business imperative to help employees stay well, rather than fix them when they become unwell.
Is this your company or team? Or do you want to be proactive in your corporate wellbeing plan to prevent these?:
Stressed
Overwhelmed
Reactive
Anxious
Trouble relaxing and sleeping?
Feeling increasing personal pressure in the current economic/financial climate
The benefits of our work together can include:
Greater clarity and purpose with renewed energy
Increased personal and professional wellbeing
Improved focus and performance
Greater resilience and emotional intelligence
Clarity, curiosity, connection and a greater openness to life
Committing to a regular self-care practice for physical and emotional wellbeing
Feeling empowered with lifelong resilient type tools to overcome stuckness, fears and anxiety
Be the change!
Health inequality is a huge issue and one that employers must take more seriously if they are to fare better in future moving forwards. What social divides will be present within your workforce? Does your current wellbeing agenda take into account the impact that well paid, fast paced, high pressured jobs have on individuals mental health, as well as physical? Does it take into account if your employee is juggling parent life? Does it consider if your team are sleeping well at night? Would you know? Does it take into account if they are a carer for a sick relative? As such a different type of health support is required than the one you provide. Ask yourself if you know who the most vulnerable members of your staff are? Do you even have the right to know? Or does helping your entire team, from top to bottom, stay well make a lot more sense moving forward? Benjamin Franklin said “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure”.
Most of us can agree that keeping active and making healthy decisions in our daily lives contributes to our overall sense of energy, productivity and happiness. But there are people who work for you that will feel like they cannot afford to factor in those decisions, for many reasons, and they can often be the most at risk. Proactivity is fundamentally a state of mind that helps us to become more conscious and in tune with our health and our bodies. But when you have a slew of other more pressing stresses, like how to pay the rent/mortgage or feed the family, pay back debt, see your children and be present with them, or support an elderly relative, it’s not that easy to find the headspace people need to be proactive.
So what can businesses do to start to shift the model and mindset of staff to a different type of care? One focused on cause (proactive), not condition (reactive)?
For starters, employers should be looking to work with companies who provide life-support for their staff, not [just] healthcare-related products. By giving staff access to services that help them think in greater depth about the food they consume and the level of physical activity they undertake, you can help them make better, more-informed choices that positively affect both their physical and mental health — which ironically will also help them cope better with the stresses that lead to poor health in the long-term.
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An Example Wellbeing Coaching Programme:
Coaching over a one-three-six month period which could be face to face, and/or remotely (via Zoom or Teams). The initial session could be 1 ½ hours and subsequent sessions would be 45-60 minutes.
Included is the completion and report from a health assessment and optional DNA test. Providing a reliable assessment of an individual’s overall physical and mental health, resilience and highlights any key areas that require focus.
The coaching can empower the individual to develop a toolkit with a focus on nutrition, fitness, resilience and stress management strategies, strengths, resources, insights together with other suggested resources, leaving them feeling better in the now and set up for success in the future, enabling them to be more, do more and achieve more both on a personal and professional level.
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Format of Programmes:
Format of Programmes:
One to One Coaching (see example, left)
Group Coaching
Nutrition consultations
Workshops which can include workouts
Informal Sessions
Zoom or Microsoft Teams Sessions
Use of various measures eg. MTQ48 (resilience), health assessments and Wellbeing questionnaires
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H&S Manager, Lister Shearing
“Lister would like to thank you for your coaching sessions during our health and safety day, regarding wellbeing and gut health. Our staff were blown away by ‘you are what you eat’ and have taken on board all the information that you shared with them. You made the sessions fun, with your show and tell and we can’t thank you enough for joining and educating us. We will be asking you back.”
GM, Whitehall
“I wanted to thank you on behalf of the whole business for the incredible Wellbeing day that you ran for us. The teams have learnt so much and remarkably we are already seeing an impact in parts of the business. Having a mix of the workshops and 1:1 drop in clinics worked really well and we cannot wait to have you back next year. Thanks again.”
