As The Great Resignation looms large, organizations are under immense pressure to retain their top talent. One proven strategy for keeping employees happy, healthy, and productive is fostering a culture of corporate wellness. This involves promoting self-care at work, as well as during off-hours. But is implementing self-care strategies enough to foster corporate wellness and boost employee retention?
What is Self-Care and Why Does it Matter?
Self-care is any series of intentional actions that boost mental, physical, and emotional well-being. It can include various aspects such as nutrition, lifestyle, personal hygiene, preventive healthcare, stress management, and even maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
Self-care is an integral part of health and wellness. And because healthy, happy employees translate to increased engagement, productivity, and retention rates, it’s essential for all organizations to prioritize.
The Role of Self-Care in Corporate Wellness
Because self-care encompasses a wide range of healthy behaviors, it plays a pivotal role in corporate wellness. By prioritizing self-care strategies, employees can lower their stress levels, morbidity, and utilization of healthcare services, as well as improve emotional and physical well-being, combat burnout, and boost productivity.
A study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) showed that employees who prioritize self-care also have higher levels of job satisfaction, lower rates of absenteeism, and improved job performance. But it’s just as crucial for management. Another study by the NIH found that utilizing self-care strategies can make you a better leader. So self-care is truly a powerful influence on wellness and success throughout the organization.
And yet, only 43.1% of adults in the UK have a regular self-care routine, according to another NIH study. And many studies only look at self-care practices that take place outside of work. But to experience the benefits of self-care and create a culture of wellness, it’s important to build a routine that extends throughout your daily life–not just at home.
Self-Care Strategies for the Workplace
Here are some key self-care strategies for the workplace. Learning how to practice self-care at work and leading by example will keep your employees more inspired to get onboard, creating wellness throughout your company.
1. Encourage physical activity. This is a great way to promote health and well-being amongst your staff. Offer exercise classes, encourage employees to take walking breaks throughout the day, or hold fitness challenges with incentives to reach certain milestones.
2. Prioritize mental health. Mental health is just as important as physical health, and is an integral aspect of self-care at work. Providing access to mental health resources, such as employee assistance programs, and encouraging mental wellness activities can help employees manage stress, fight burnout, and improve overall well-being.
3. Engage the team in group activities where you can all get to know each other–whether in-person or virtually–or even participate in team-building exercises.
4. Encourage employees to take short breaks throughout the workday. This can boost employees’ focus and support positive emotions.
5. Implement a corporate wellness program. Corporate wellness programs provide health education, lifestyle tips, and even rewards to employees for taking care of their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. These programs are particularly effective for promoting self-care, but go far beyond the typical strategies by offering a more comprehensive approach to employee wellness and organizational success.
Promote Self-Care at Work with a Corporate Wellness Platform
Self-care strategies are a crucial component of corporate wellness, but they're just one piece of the puzzle. To create an environment that supports your organization in all dimensions of health and well-being, consider using a workplace wellness platform like Wellics.
With video education modules on essential self-care skills, health education, mental health and mindfulness training, and more, Wellics offers powerful tools for supporting employee health and well-being, leading to increased wellness, happiness, and productivity throughout your organization.
Book a demo to learn more.
Sources
- The Great Resignation Forbes article
https://fortune.com/2023/02/02/great-resignation-will-end-2023-anthony-klotz/ - NIH self-care study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8488814/ - NIH study on well-being, healthcare, productivity, and retention
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3870481/ - NIMH mental health study
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/caring-for-your-mental-health - NIH self-care and leadership study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9180678/ - NOH self-care patterns study
