There is much emphasis on wellness but we do not often hear organisations place a premium on their employee’s wellness and promote a workplace that supports that.
To be perfectly honest, work and wellness are concepts that you do not see go hand in hand. Organisations might offer a wellness activity every now and then, such as a yoga or meditation class to get everyone into better balance, but they fail to see what is needed at the core to address what employees need to actually have a holistic approach to being and working well. Very few organisations have taken a proactive role in offering employees a global solution to achieving optimum wellness combined with optimum performance.
However, The Future of Wellness 2023 Trends report from the Global Wellness Summit makes a promising exposition that workplace wellness is finally starting to mean something.
The good news is, times are changing – the system needs to change. Many employees who suffer from mental health issues are now demanding change and an improvement in the policies and benefits in the workplace that states a clear action plan to promote wellness for the employees.
What fueled this reaction from employees are increasing cases of people being overworked and burnout in the last year. Remote work is also intensifying the blurred lines between work and personal life. And lastly, there are numerous companies that are now under fire because of “horror stories” of toxic workplaces.
So, what is the future of wellness in the workplace? Here are some initiatives that companies are now slowly adopting to promote wellness and mental health:
New work structure
To address the blurred boundaries between work and personal life due to remote work, companies are now restructuring work to create a healthier balance.
Although the four-day workweek is not a new concept, the results of changing this structure have been overwhelmingly positive. In addition to this, companies are also revising their PTO (Personal Time Off) policies to make sure that when employees take time off from work, they actually take time to rejuvenate and come back recharged and ready to go.
Another trend that is gaining more popularity is the “right to disconnect.” This means that staff will not be required to respond to any work-related correspondence or calls after work hours. This has been seen to result in a better work-life balance among employees.
Wellness beyond the office
With fewer people finding appeal in free snacks, office recreation rooms, and seasonal wellness programs, organisations now face the challenge of coming up with better wellness offerings to attract new talents.
Companies are now investing in more offsite events with the intention to have people come together and connect over the company’s mission and vision. There are also some companies that have opened corporate accounts in wellness centres and use the facilities for meetings and conferences for an out-of-the-box experience.
Gender-specific benefits
Major progress is being achieved in addressing the wellness benefits of specific genders. There is a significant improvement in the reproductive health benefits for women over the years. There are companies that now offer fertility benefits and provisions for menopause needs.
Psychedelic therapy
Psychedelic perks are by far the most forward-looking development in addressing wellness in the workplace. There now exists an insurance plan for psychedelic healthcare that covers ketamine therapy and hopefully will expand to MDMA and psilocybin-assisted therapies.
Day after day, employees are raising the bar and demanding more wellness and mental health initiatives as a non-negotiable in the workplace. And although many would agree that we still have a long way to go, one thing is for sure, change is coming and it might come sooner than we think if all members of the organisations come together and become forces for change.
The real question for employers now is how do you create an environment in your workplace where people leave work feeling better than when they start their day?
Leaders need to understand the degree of influence that they have in the workplace. Their role extends not only to the bottom line but also to the wellness of the people that make up the organisation. By bringing consciousness into the workplace, Conscious Leaders will be agents of systemic change that will catapult organisations into a business that creates a positive impact from within the organisation to the greater world.