The one thing you need to do to create a healthy workplace

Thought: You do not control outcomes, only actions, and culture dictates which actions will be repeated most frequently.?

Tip: All workplace health programs are different. They must be, because all workplaces are different. They are made up of people and, just like people, they are living, breathing organisms that can not be controlled, only influenced.

The goals of any workplace health program will be some mixture of:

Decrease absenteeism, increase productivity, improve health outcomes, decrease workers compensation claims, improve employee attraction and retention, decrease stress, improve morale etcetera etcetera.

These are all well and good but they’re all outcomes, and we have no final control over whether these outcomes will be achieved. The only thing we have control over are our actions and the processes we put in place that drive us towards them.

In the same way a sporting team only controls the effort and performance of its players, not the final score, we too can only control our input, not the outcome.

So, what is the input? What is the one thing we need to do in order to give ourselves and our workplace health program the best chance of success?

Create a culture of health.

Now, this may seem vague and cliche, but in reality it’s the only thing you need to think about.

In all things ask yourself, ‘does this create a culture of health or not?’, then act accordingly.

You know in yourself that once you change one health behaviour, others inevitably follow.

You start exercising for 15 minutes a day and all of a sudden 6 months later your health has improved markedly.?

This exercise itself is a great intervention, but it’s not enough to explain the improvements you’ve experienced.

The reality is that deciding to do a little bit of exercise caused a shift in your mindset, which then made it easier to adopt other good health behaviours.

You work out for 15 minutes at lunchtime, so you have to bring your workout gear, which means you have to get organised in the morning, which means you have to wake up early, which means you have to get to bed early.

You don’t want to feel heavy and bloated before or after so you stick to clean, whole foods for breakfast and lunch.

Your sleep improves due to the exercise so you find you look forward to going to bed early rather than dreading lying there awake for hours.

You want to manage muscle soreness and injuries so you start learning more about the body and different types of exercise and their effects.

Eventually your friend joins you for your workout so you form a closer bond with them, and now you have a workout partner and greater social support.

Over time, that one small decision to start exercising has shifted your mindset, changed your actions, and created an environment where making the healthy choice is the easy one. It’s created a culture of health in you.

The same is true of any workplace.?

Do the little things right, and they will have a flow on effect to the big things.

Create the environment for people to be healthy, and make them feel supported and encouraged to take advantage of it, and they will.

Encourage and incentivise group exercise on company time so people feel supported and want to join in.

Create a meditation space in a meeting room and run 10 minute meditation sessions throughout the workday.?

Subsidise healthy food options or run competitions for who can bring the healthiest and most interesting lunch.?

The intervention itself isn’t the important thing, it’s the culture that it feeds into.

At the juncture of every decision, just keep asking yourself, ‘does this create a culture of health or not?’.

This logic also holds for staff working remotely.

It’s easy to think that just because your employees aren’t in the office that there’s little you can do for their health, but there are still so many options available.

Meditation, exercise, health consulting, catch ups, challenges and support groups can all be run virtually.

In some cases the engagement may actually increase, and in all cases it will make your employees feel more connected to each other, and that they work for a company that cares about them and supports them being healthy.

There are literally infinite ways a health program can be run, and just as many outcomes they can create, but one thing always holds true.

Whatever the culture of your workplace is, that will dictate the actions of your employees.

To create a healthy one, just keep asking yourself, ‘does this create a culture of health or not?’, answer, then act accordingly.?

Question: Which actions will lead to the outcomes you want, and what kind of culture makes those actions most likely?

News: How Leaders Can Strengthen Company Culture In A Hybrid World - Spoiler alert, the secret is to truly give a crap about your people.