Wellness: Sustain It

Are They Sick or Tired?

Companies that take wellness seriously find that the payoff is great, not only in retention, but also in energy for the job and in productivity.

How do you, the manager, enhance your team’s wellness? What are you doing to encourage the wellness of your talented people?

Today’s workplace is typically high-energy and highly productive. To play successfully within it, you and your employees must be well and fit—mentally, emotionally, and physically. In this competitive environment, wellness is a “must have” rather than a “nice to have.” Without it, you simply will not win. By focusing on your employees’ wellness, you can increase the odds that they will stay and play effectively on your team.

“I don’t have a wellness budget.” That’s what we hear from managers who want healthy employees but assume that costs a lot (think gymnasiums, volleyball courts, stress management classes). It doesn’t have to.

What Is Wellness?

To one person, wellness means being able to enter the Dead Sea Marathon and finish in four hours. To another, it may mean finally being free of migraine headaches. To another, it may mean slimming down or reducing stress and high blood pressure before the next physical exam.

We define wellness as a “state of physical, mental, and emotional fitness.” Some might call it well-being. To capture a clear picture of it, you might need to think back to a recent vacation when you felt incredibly relaxed, physically healthy and energetic, mentally sharp (maybe even creative), and emotionally satisfied. It may seem unreasonable to expect that you or your employees will feel at work like you feel on vacation, but it is useful to have the “perfect world” scenario in mind as you strive to increase your employees’ fitness and wellness levels.

Notice if something is wrong or if your employees’ work habits change dramatically. Do not wait. Ask how you might help and then collaborate on a plan. Take individual differences into account; wellness strategies for one person will not necessarily work for another.

Defining Work-Life Balance

Do more with less. Move faster than the competition. Be more creative, more innovative, more distinct. Do it with fewer dollars. Be available at all times. These pressures push many to say that work just asks too much.

What does balance mean to you and to your employees? It is different for everyone. Why? Because balance needs or preferences are influenced by dozens of variables, such as culture, upbringing, responsibilities outside of work, health, energy, personality, emotion, family position or structure, geography, habitat, climate, age, gender, ethnicity, hobbies, sports, and occupation.

How will you ever guess which of these influencers are true for any of your talented people? You won’t. You’ll ask. You’ll ask what balance means to them and how you might partner with them to get more of it, right where they are.

We are not suggesting that your employees’ balance issues are your concern alone or that you must provide the answers. We are suggesting, however, that you can take actions to encourage balance and thus wellness.

What about Burnout?

Burnout is chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. The term burnout originated in the 1970s, and the phenomenon is now considered by many as a global workplace epidemic.

And burnout is expensive! Stanford University professor Jeffrey Pfeffer, author of Dying for a Paycheck, says “there are 120,000 excess deaths per year attributed to . . . workplace conditions and they cause approximately $190 billion in incremental healthcare costs. That would make the workplace the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S. higher than Alzheimer’s, higher than kidney disease.”

The solutions would seem evident, and many of them are in your hands. Treat people fairly, don’t overload them, be clear about their roles, communicate and support them, and stop the unreasonable pressure. If you suspect burnout, ask your employees how they feel and what they need. Then take action on their behalf.

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