Corporate Wellness Culture: Your Employee Wellness Program Needs an Overhaul

In 2020, many companies jumped aboard the corporate wellness train. Every year, there appear to be more corporate initiatives like free gym memberships, biometric screenings, and online platforms. While all of these are steps in the right direction for employers to achieve a healthy labor force, most businesses are missing the bigger picture. 

Setting up these initiatives are a fantastic way to ensure your employees are healthy, happy, and performing at their best. However, in reality, these initiatives usually fall flat. A free gym membership is only beneficial if your employees have time to take advantage of it. Constant overtime hours or long commutes can make a gym membership unusable.

Aiding your employees’ health is going to take more than simply monthly challenges or once-a-year health check-ups. To truly make an impact, you’ll need to create more than a wellness checklist. You need to create a culture of wellness. 

If you want to ensure your wellness program yields sustainable results to create happy and productive employees, you need to ensure your employees are building healthy habits at the core. In this article, I’ll shed light on the importance of corporate wellness, what to avoid, and what you can do in 2021 to create a culture of wellness. 

What is a Culture of Wellness?

Corporate cultures exist in every business. Your business acts as a mini-society within your city and over a business’ life cycle, culture is created automatically. If you have free donuts at the office and encourage employees to work 6 and 7 days a week, what kind of culture do you think you’re building?

A culture of wellness focuses on empowering the well-being of every employee in your company. It means being intentional to focus on the health and wellness of your staff and creating a healthy environment for them to thrive in their professional and personal lives. 

Why Should You Budget for an Employee Wellness Program? 

Your employees are your business. The well-being of your staff directly correlates to the success of your business. The type of culture you create at your company will directly affect your staff. If you want to motivate your staff to prioritize their health and wellness, you need to build a strong workplace culture that encourages and rewards healthy behaviours and habits. 

So, why put in the effort to establish and maintain a wellness culture? Apart from the fact that it will make your employees healthier, here are a few more reasons you should budget for an employee wellness program.

1. It Will Make Your Employees Happier

Without an effective wellness program, your employees are much more likely to be leading stressful lives. 

However, when your employees are part of a corporate culture that encourages and supports healthy behaviours like eating the right food, regularly exercising, and socializing with other employees, they’ll lead happier lives. 

Did you know that people who live active lives are happier? Your employees’ health directly impacts their mood, so if you want to ensure your staff are happy when they show up for work, you’ll want to consider a wellness program. 

2. It Will Save Your Business Money

If you’re wanting to initiate a corporate wellness program, but you don’t think you have enough capital, consider this: A report by Deloitte found that poor employee wellbeing is costing UK employers up to $46 billion every year. 

You may be wondering how that’s possible. Well, let’s dive into a more in-depth study where Harvard University researchers reviewed 36 corporate wellness programs. In the study, they found that for every $1 spent on wellness programs, company absenteeism costs fell by $2.73. 

A meta-analysis of 42 different corporate wellness studies found a 25% reduction in absenteeism and sick leave, 25% lower health costs, and 32% lower worker’s disability and compensation costs. 

As you can see, creating a wellness program shouldn’t cost you a thing. In fact, if you create a proper program, you should be saving money. So if you want to reduce your expenses in 2021 (and reduce sick leaves and disabilities), you’ll want to ensure you initiate a holistic wellness program. 

3. You’ll Keep Your Employees Longer

Not only will your employees’ physical and mental health improve with the right wellness program, but it will make them feel valued. Creating a culture of wellness will help your employees feel appreciated in a way that an increased salary or bonus can’t. It shows that you support them professionally, but also personally, leading to greater job satisfaction and retention. 

In a report by Optum that surveyed 1,200 full-time employees, researchers found that engagement in employee wellness programs was linked to greater employee retention. It also found that of those who didn’t have an employee wellness program, only 18% were likely to recommend their employer. 

4. Physical Activity Will Increase Employee Productivity

In a Straits Times article, it was reported that Singapore’s productivity loss due to absenteeism or sickness may hit $3.3 billion by 2030. While productivity is proven to drop without health and wellness initiatives, it’s also shown to increase with regular exercise.

Employees who exercise produce more. The advantages of physical activity go beyond simply shedding fat and building muscle. Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, improving concentration, alertness, and energy levels. 

In a LinkedIn article by Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, he says, “Physical exercise is great for the brain; it’s a wonderful way to help you focus your energy and keep a positive mind frame. We’ve recognised this from the very early days of Virgin, where the health and happiness of our people has been a priority long before ‘employee wellbeing’ was a buzzword.”

Corporate Wellness Done Wrong

Despite the fact that corporate wellness programs are becoming more popular throughout the world, most aren’t looking through the lense of cultural wellness. They’re looking to check off a box. 

For example, most gyms who provide a corporate wellness program to companies are based largely on numbers. ‘If you send us more employees, we’ll give you a bigger discount on membership fees.’

A gym that promotes these types of corporate wellness programs aren’t looking out for the best interest of their clients. Not only that, but they rarely even have their own corporate wellness program for their own employees (the trainers). 

Oftentimes they’re overworked and dealing with physical and mental health issues of their own. According to Wits Education, the annual turnover rate for personal trainers is 80-90%. 

Even though there are a number of easy ways to incorporate exercise into your daily routine in 2021, there isn’t much thought given to designing corporate wellness programs. Throwing together a bunch of activities hoping it works out isn’t going to cut it. 

So how do you create an effective corporate wellness program that will lead to a real culture of wellness?

Effective Corporate Wellness Starts With Habit-Building

Before you start building out a wellness plan for your staff, you need to first take a step back and get a wider view of wellness programs. 

If the whole purpose of creating a culture of wellness at your business is to see employees gain lasting health and wellness, then you need to ensure you focus on the long term impact of these programs on your employees. 

To ensure your employees’ wellness is looked after in the long run, you need to help them form healthy habits.

In regards to forming effective habits, James Clear writes in his bestselling book, Atomic Habits, “The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together these four steps form a neurological feedback loop.”

The example below will help make sense of each stage of the habit process:

• Cue: You hit a roadblock on your work project.
• Craving: You feel stuck and want to ease your frustration.
• Response: You decide to pull your smartphone and hop onto Facebook.
• Reward: You satisfied your craving to ease your frustration. Checking Facebook becomes associated with hitting a roadblock at work. 

In order to create good, healthy habits, Clear writes that you need to ask 4 questions:

“How can I make the cue obvious?”

“How can I make the craving attractive?”

“How can I make the response easy?”

“How can I make the reward satisfying?”

For instance, if, instead of checking Facebook whenever you hit a stumbling block, you decide that it’s best to take a minute, stand up from your desk, walk to get a drink of water at the cooler, and sit back down, you simply need to optimize each process:

1. Make hitting a roadblock obvious. You could remind yourself with a sticky note on your desk that says, “RB, take a minute,” which is short for “Roadblock, take a minute.”
2. Make the craving to get a drink of water attractive by reminding yourself that you also get to stretch your legs.
3. Make the response easy by keeping a reusable water bottle at your desk that you can carry over to fill up. 
4. Make the reward satisfying by bringing a slice of lemon for cool water or a few tea bags for hot tea. 

In order to see real habits form, there needs to be extra attention given to the behavioural process by using reward systems. By following this habit-forming framework, you can build wellness initiatives that can instill long-lasting change in your employees and your corporate culture.

Tactics for Effective Corporate Wellness

Once you understand that the basis of effective corporate wellness starts at the creation of healthy habits, you can begin to build a program of healthy initiatives to get your team on track. Here are some tactics you can use for effective corporate wellness:

Flexible Working Hours

If one of your wellness initiatives includes a free or discounted membership to a local gym, will your employees have time to use it?

To ensure you have happy, healthy employees, you need to give them flexible working hours. Maybe this means starting at 10 instead of 8, so they can head to the gym in the morning. Maybe it means you work out a 4-day workweek. Or perhaps, it means they work remotely a few days a week which allows them to get more gym time. 

According to Zenefits, 73% of employees believe flexible work arrangements increased their satisfaction at work. When your employee has flexible hours, they’ll be able to actually use the wellness programs you set up.

Flexible working hours isn’t just about exercising more. In an article by Singaporean blogger Jeraldine Phneah, she says, “Having worked so hard for so many decades, having one of the highest stress levels and longest working hours globally, Singaporeans definitely deserve better welfare at work and time to spend with their families.”

Entice the CEO to Become ‘Limitless’ Themselves

Employees tend to follow their leader. If you want to create true change in corporate culture, you’ll need to get the CEO to step up to the plate themselves. 

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey fasts every day. He also practices a version of cold water therapy made famous through the Wim Hof Method by jumping into a hot barrel sauna then into an ice bath.

According to Business Insider, Apple CEO Tim Cook hits the gym at 5 AM every morning, and even describes himself as a “fitness nut.” In the same article, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is quoted as saying, “I make sure I work out at least three times a week — usually first thing when I wake up."

According to an article by Harvard Business Review, between 2001 and 2011, the amount of CEOs who completed a marathon doubled. They also go on to state that 90% of managers said physical exercise had a positive impact on their leadership skills. 

Business leaders are beginning to stand up in front of their staff to talk regularly about physical and mental health, along with how the business is doing. If you want to ensure your team is impacted through a powerful wellness culture, you’ll need to lead from the front. 

Use Tech to Gamify Your Wellness Program

AIA Vitality is a Singaporean health and insurance app that rewards you for making different healthy choices. For instance, by simply eating a healthy meal or going for a walk, you can input your data, and the app will give you points. These points can then be redeemed for vouchers for retailers like Starbucks or Grab. 

Actxa and HeartVoice are other easy-to-use, gamified corporate wellness apps you can use to easily track and support wellness initiatives among your team.

A Few More Basic Tips

Offer healthy food choices. Dr. Laurena Law is cited in a Compare Retreats article as saying, “Around 90% of us do not meet the daily recommendation of fruits and vegetables which affects brain function and worsens issues like concentration and memory.” You should provide your staff with fresh fruit and vegetables. Put healthy meals including low-carb, keto-friendly snacks in the kitchen or break room.

Support movement at work. Offer standing desks and encourage water cooler trips. 

Offer bulletproof coffee at work. Rather than offering a basic cup of coffee, have a bulletproof coffee station set up including grass-fed butter and MCT oil to create a super tasty, energizing coffee. 

Have multiple water coolers available. If you want to ensure your employees are healthy, encourage them to hydrate with a few different water stations. Keep backup bottled water in the break room fridge.

Offer incentives for healthy habits. Reward employees who have completed wellness activities like daily steps, total number of walks, healthy foods. Offer gift cards, gym discounts, wearables, and other prizes. 

Create opportunities for social activities. You should host company outings a few times a month to get together for a glass of wine or go on a hike. You could organize a lunch outing during work hours or plan a fun activity in place of a typical “meeting”. You could even take your staff on an adventure with My Virtual Mission.

Create a healthy work environment. Use air filters, water filters, check annually for mold exposure, quality of air, use EMF-protected laptops, encourage use of stand up desks, and increase natural sunlight exposure in the morning and afternoon at the office.

If you have employees whose roles involve having to fly across time zones (when borders open again), ensure you’re providing them with the resources and tools they need to minimize the effects of jet lag to protect their health and ensure they’re productive at business meetings. Hotels are now being more considerate of the wellbeing of their business travelled guest, as pointed out in this keynote interview with Tom Meyer (Vice President, Operations) Accor at the Fit Summit.

Provide resources for your staff. If they want to learn more about wellness initiatives, provide different material and resources with companies and programs they can look into. 

If you want to ensure your employees are taken care of, so they’re happy, healthy, and productive, you’ll need to follow these tips. 

Without an effective wellness program, not only will your employees be taking a toll on their health and happiness, but your business productivity and bottom line will drop. It’s not enough to simply check off an employee’s name when it comes to yearly health check-ups or monthly meetings. 

You have to remember that creating a wellness culture at work is more than simply handing out gym memberships. If you want to form a corporate culture that encourages healthy habits, you need to ensure you take a holistic approach to wellness programs. By doing so, you’ll create a happy, productive workforce, all while saving your business money.

Check out these resources for more information on health and wellness programs in Singapore:

• An Apple A Day
• Knowles Training Institute
• Onsite Health
• Coursemology
• Healthy Workplace Ecosystem