Do you own a business where you hire numerous employees? Have you ever taken their well-being into account? Perhaps you have a traditional health program implemented to keep your employees healthy?
Well, chances are those health programs are pretty ineffective.
These traditional health programs need to go and be replaced with something that actually benefits employees.
What do traditional health programs offer?
When you take a step back and analyze what traditional health programs offer, you will be quite disappointed. It is often limited to emails and an occasional seminar that hardly anyone attends. You probably notice that occasional email that talks about behaviours that promote health, like quitting smoking or exercising.
Even if some businesses take it a step further and talk about something in a meeting, it is often pretty short, and hardly anyone gives any input. This is because it is often merged with a work meeting, so no one is really that interested.
Why are they ineffective?
The whole purpose of health programs is to build healthier relationships and allow your employees to work in a space where they are cared for.
If you take a look at traditional methods, you'll notice that there is hardly any employee that is benefitting from it.
At most, one would skim through an email if they decide to open it at all.
To make these programs effective, business needs to understand what they're doing that negatively affect their employees' health. After this, they need to work on improving their methodologies, so all employees remain comfortable and healthy in the atmosphere.
What alternative should businesses acquire?
It is actually much easier to implement a much better health program in a business. The only thing that needs to be done is to improve the quality of treatment that employees receive at the workplace. Here are some methods to adopt with which businesses can improve their health programs:
1. More control over their work:
When employees are allowed to work the way they deem fit, they are more likely to perform better. When you give them the basic instructions and a deadline, they are bound to come up with something fantastic.
Along with this, it won’t stress them out because they have planned it in a way that would suit their needs and lifestyle away from work.
2. Feedback on excessive demands:
It is necessary to realize that, at times, employees may be overworked.
This affects their performance as they may lean towards getting burnt out. This often happens when one is overburdened with work.
To help, it is best if employees are allowed to provide feedback so that the business can provide an environment that caters to their mental health.
3. Encourage social relationships:
When someone has friends in an environment, they are more likely to want to attend and actually enjoy it. To be able to bring this into the workplace, social relationships must be encouraged.
A friendly environment where everyone feels equal is a great initiative. This will also allow employees to be more open when they are being overworked.
Caring for your employees in the workspace is crucial for any business. This improves their mental health, and thus the quality of work, so every business should focus on their health programs. It is crucial to move past all those traditional health programs and opt for some that allow the actual well-being of employees to improve.