7 Crazy Wellness Ideas To Transform Your Company

I'll leave the number crunching, i-dotting and t-crossing to others.  I'm here to talk to you about new and radical (and frankly common sense) ways to improve your company's culture, take care of your employees, and help your business thrive.  Call me wacky, but I have seen the future, and if we don't start making people matter by addressing their stress and other health issues with compassion, we're in trouble.

Here's my list of transformative workplace enhancements, in no particular order.

1. Teach them to meditate and let them do it at work.

Did you know 25% of large US companies have launched stress reduction initiatives such as meditation and mindfulness training? Google, General Mills, Target and Apple offer meditation and/or mindfulness programs to their employees and are reporting amazing results.  

Meditation should be taught in every business on the planet.  There have been over 1,000 scientific papers written on the benefits of meditation in the past twenty years.  It's a powerful tool for relieving stress, re-wiring the brain, and balancing body chemistry.  Think of it as wellness from the inside out.  External health improvement incentives, like cash bonuses, work temporarily.  But internal changes sustain.  Teaching employees to meditate will enhance every aspect of their professional life, personal life and health.

2.  Offer and support mindfulness training.

Mindfulness and meditation are closely linked.  In my mind, meditation is the mechanism that allows for mindfulness.  Mindfulness is a state of awareness and acceptance. It fuels creativity, adaptability and critical thinking through a process of detaching from habitual, non-productive thinking.  In the workplace, this translates into more clarity, focus, compassion, productivity, collaboration and innovation.

Instead of cultivating people who will work harder and longer, start inspiring those who will bring innovation and inspiration to their job.  Nurture creative, adaptable, productive employees who will thrive and motivate others.

3.  Let them take a nap.

Seem ridiculous?  Well it worked in preschool and it will work in business, too.  

We, as a society, are exhausted!  Insomnia is rampant and our health is suffering.  Allowing employees a 20-30 minute break in their day to lean back or lay their heads down and sleep will increase their focus and productivity tenfold.  Even better, create a dedicated napping space with comfy chairs, sofas or cots and yoga mats.  There is nothing like a 20-minute power nap to refresh and rejuvenate the mind.

4. Offer nutrient-dense, natural energy-boosting snacks for free.  

There is nothing worse for your bottom line than overweight, unhealthy employees who binge on caffeine, sugar and processed foods all day.  You lose on so many levels when your employees make bad food choices.  For example, the inevitable mid-morning sugar crash after noshing on donuts is a concentration killer.  Additionally, all of the health problems related to obesity are causing your health care costs to soar.

Investing in healthy snacks such as fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, and creating a culture of healthy snackers, could save you tons on healthcare, productivity and absenteeism.

  

5.  Get them moving.

Introduce and support a mini-workout culture.  Create a routine that involves some type of movement throughout the day.  Even 5 minutes of standing, stretching and walking three times a day could make a huge difference in your employees' overall mental and physical health.  Encourage exercises based on their job.  Sitting at a computer?  Try neck stretches, arm movements and hip stretches.  Standing?  Keep the ankles, knees and hips flexible with targeted but simple movements.  Encourage movement!  Expect it!  Make it fun!

6.  Encourage hydration.

Dehydration is a huge, often overlooked health problem. Even mild dehydration can cause headaches, sleepiness, and lack of focus.

Provide healthy, clean, filtered drinking water for free and encourage consumption.  Why not purchase a cool refillable water bottle with your company logo on it and give one to every employee who participates in a Get Hydrated program? Educate your workers about the importance of staying hydrated and support them by providing good, quality water.  

7.  Time!  Time!  Time!

One of the greatest stressors of modern times is time. Everybody wishes for a few more hours in the day or an extra day in the week.  Our to-do lists keep growing and time seems to be speeding up.  Help your employees reduce their stress and create better work-life balance by giving them time.

Offer time off as an incentive for your wellness programs. Consider flextime and other accommodating time options. Can they work from home one day a week?  Can they earn time off through performance reviews?  Finding creative ways to award time to your employees will pay off in the form of happier, less stressed, grateful and more productive workers.

Employee Wellness From the Inside Out

Does your company have a comprehensive wellness program?  Does it inspire and encourage folks to choose less stress and better health?  Or does it simply reward them for hitting externally mandated health goals?  External incentives, like cash bonuses, work temporarily.  Internal changes sustain.  You can pay a person to lose weight, or you can INSPIRE them to choose wellbeing.

Mindfulness training and meditation instruction are gaining popularity in the workplace nationwide.  These practices serve as conduits to stress reduction and inner change.  They empower people to make more conscious choices.  Some of the pioneers in this movement are Google, General Mills, and Apple. 

Google has a seven-week mindfulness program called, Search Inside Yourself.  General Mills has a meditation room in every building on their campus, and Steve Jobs was such a believer in meditation, he allowed Apple employees to take 30 minutes each day to meditate at work. 

This type of paradigm shift is inevitable.  The status quo incentivized weight-loss and exercise programs are simply not working.  New, leading edge, innovative wellness programs must take their place.  I say, inspire and motivate people to want to change, and give them tools to change themselves!  Now that’s a wellness program!

If stress, high health care costs, and low employee engagement are problems for your company, consider meditation and mindfulness training as ways to encourage employees to go within and begin choosing less stress and better health.  Consider it employee wellness, from the inside out. 

Low Employee Engagement? Make Time for Nothing!

    Make time for nothing?  At work?  Counterintuitive at first glance, I know.  But consider this: in a recent “State of the American Workplace” Gallup report, a dismal 30% of employees reported being engaged and inspired at work. 50% categorized themselves as not engaged, and 20% admitted being actively disengaged.

If you think employee engagement is insignificant, think again.  Disengaged employees cost companies big money, in the form of low productivity, absenteeism, and healthcare costs.

How can you accelerate employee engagement?  Gallup reports, “Enhance Employees Wellbeing,” as one of the top three ways to engage employees, because engaged workers live healthier lives and have lower healthcare costs.  Additionally, engaged employees far outshine disengaged employees in crucial performance outcomes.  So, it seems logical that wellness programs would be every company’s top priority.  But, what type of wellness?  It’s abroad topic.

At the core of employee disengagement is stress.  The APA says 70% of stress is work-related, and according to the World Health Organization, stress costs American businesses an estimated 300 billion a year.

Meditation – a stress reduction tool that’s sweeping the nation – might be the answer for turning this problem around.  Teaching employees empowering skills that help them reduce their own stress, improve their health, and engage at work, is a concept that is transforming corporate cultures nationwide.  Google, Apple, General Mills and many other companies have implemented meditation and other processes, to help their employees thrive – personally and professionally.

While it’s not technically “doing nothing,” meditation does require a few minutes of uninterrupted silence and inward awareness.  Its scientifically proven benefits are vast, and include: a measurable reduction in stress, lower blood pressure, decreased stress hormones, and more.  Employees who are allowed to meditate at work are reporting less stress, more mental clarity, and better focus. 

Is it time for your company to make time for nothing?