There was a time when the boss looking after your physical health and safety was optional, even looked upon as a onerous burden for the business. My father, a toolmaker of 40 years, most of his mates can’t count to ten on their digits without taking a shoe off. Thankfully those days are behind us! Now days we have gone even one step further into helping our staff thrive, the days of the 3 F’s (Flu shots, fruit and fitness) are even receding into the annals of good HR history.

We now understand that to have a consistently thriving, engaged and productive workforce a smart business approaches wellness from many angles.

Mental Health
Have mental health awareness and training at the forefront of any good wellness program. By creating a culture of openness and safety, where staff can openly bring their ‘full selves’ to work rather than the emotionally draining, unproductive and tiring need to hide their mental health.

The way towards this is to reduce the stigma, and we do this by talking and learning about mental health.

Resilience
Resilience is NOT shrugging off the problem and ‘toughening up’. It’s a learnt process that places our daily challenges into perspective, the skill to recognize setbacks or problems outside of our control and to move on by focusing on the things that really matter and that we have control over. Its bouncing back, not shouldering the load.

Coaching
We need to learn and practice new techniques that our parents did not necessarily know enough about to teach us.
We live in a world full of pressures and emotional challenges never before endured by humans. Our work and personal lives are so entwined, we live in a highly connected, yet bubbled, environment and looking out for our physical and mental health has taken a back seat. We need to understand and connect with our full selves before we can truly be productive in whatever capacity we put our minds to.

EAP
The Employer Assistance Program still plays an important part in workplace wellness. The caveat here is that the EAP should never stand alone as the hook upon which to hang your businesses wellness program upon. As a part of a wider program it serves an important role as the professional support for someone who may already have experienced a mental injury and either heading towards illness or already there.

Its anonymity is imperative, its existence needs to be promoted but always remember, an EAP is a REACTIVE response.

Take another look at the graph above, any business that wants to thrive, to have engaged, productive workers will need to invest in mental health and training as a significant part of their effective wellbeing program. Because if your staff are anywhere in the lower three categories you are incurring costs and will continue to struggle to get the best out of your team.

Call Thrive in Work to find out how to become an employer of choice.