Employee Wellbeing at Work: Strategies for a Healthy Workforce

There is a lot to celebrate about our modern workplaces. Increased diversity, flexibility, innovative approaches through digital transformation and access to global markets can all contribute to organisational success. Alongside that sits the complexities of employee expectations, competing priorities, external challenges, and the ongoing impact of the COVID pandemic on our mental health and wellbeing.

Most employees spend a significant proportion of their time at work. The roles we hold, the tasks we are responsible for and the environment we work in can have both a positive and negative impact on our overall health and wellbeing. This can also have a ripple effect across the places where we live and in our relationships.

Prioritising Employee Wellbeing in the Workplace

Putting their work into context, the team at A Healthy Place to Work explain that “prioritising employee health and wellbeing not only attracts top talent; it cultivates loyalty, dedication, and contentedness. If your employees believe you care about them, their health, and their goals, they too will care about these same areas for your organisation.”

There is clear evidence that good work improves health and wellbeing across people’s lives, not only from an economic standpoint but also in terms of quality of life. ‘Good work’ means having not only a safe work environment but also a sense of security, autonomy, good line management, and communication within an organisation.

The focus on employee wellbeing continues to attract attention, with a growing evidence base around the connection between happy, supported, and satisfied staff and workplace performance, productivity, retention, and creativity.

Addressing Employee Burnout

There are also views from some commentators that wellbeing at work is fluffy and a tick box exercise or too complex and challenging to both implement and measure. These viewpoints often include conversations around burnout, including causes, symptoms, and solutions.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) and as defined in the International Classification of Diseases, burnout is “a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed.” It is characterised by three dimensions:

• Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion.
• Increased mental distance from one’s job or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to work.
• Reduced professional efficacy.

Stress is a complex issue in itself, with different triggers, responses, and outcomes at an individual level. It is also challenging to separate what is going on in someone’s personal life from how that relates to how they present in work and vice versa.

However, good workplace wellbeing practices that are connected to a company’s culture, underpinned by data and with senior people in the organisation leading by example can go a long way to both minimising and identifying burnout risk.

So Where Can You Start?

• Employee Engagement – Asking the right questions and listening to the responses, warts and all about what wellbeing means to your teams.
• Organisational Culture – How are your values and behaviour frameworks connected with reality in terms of how your business operates and the impact on your staff, e.g., workload, communication, and relationships?
• Connecting The Data and The Evidence – What do you want to measure to tell the story of the impact of wellbeing practices?
• Workplace Wellbeing Strategically – Who is leading, and what are they saying about the importance of workplace wellbeing?
• Workplace Wellbeing Operationally – What programmes are you offering? Are they evidence-based? Is there a good mix of information, experiential learning, fun and a focus on reducing stress?
• Measure, Review, and Refocus – What is the data telling you? What needs to change, and who is responsible for reporting on this?
• Employee Engagement – After 3, 6, 12 months and beyond, how are you closing the loop, feeding back with staff, and taking on board new information to embed a culture of wellbeing?

Alongside that, what can we do as individuals to take small steps and build good habits to improve our health and wellbeing outcomes, inside and outside of work?

Thrive Global talks about microsteps to support our wellbeing pillars, and the evidence-based Five Ways to Wellbeing are a great place to start:

Give

• Volunteer your time to support
• Give yourself a pat on the back for showing up.
• Practice gratitude for everything that is good in your life.
• Share your skills and experiences to help
• Show compliments and kindness to others and see the ripple effect.

Keep Learning

• Open your mind to new
• Listen to your role models.
• Try a new hobby, learn a new
• Set yourself a challenge and commit to small daily actions.
• Surround yourself with diverse views and

Be Active

• Walk in nature when you can.
• Get up from your laptop/chair and stretch regularly.
• Join a group activity to meet new people and increase motivation.
• Move in a way that works for you – dance, exercise classes, the gym.
• Recognise the improving strength of your body.

Notice

• What are you allowing into your mind through what you watch and listen to?
• How are you nourishing your body to support your wellbeing?
• Who are you surrounding yourself with to inspire and uplift you?
• Take time to enjoy the beauty of your natural
• Listen to your body when it needs to rest and recover.

Connect

• With yourself so that you know what feels right for you.
• With others to reduce isolation and nurture strong relationships.
• With nature to enjoy the healing power of being outdoors in the seasons.
• With your breath to bring awareness to your nervous system and achieve balance.

Author Bio:

Catherin Murnin founded The Wellbeing Pathway, an initiative that promotes and supports wellbeing within individuals, community groups, businesses and organisations through facilitation, coaching, and bespoke programmes. A respected author and a podcaster, Catherine has worked in health and wellbeing roles across the community, voluntary, statutory and business sectors.

With over 20 years of experience in health and wellbeing practice, Catherine has won awards for Leadership, Managing Change, and Workplace Wellbeing and has set up pilot programmes to inform health and wellbeing practice.

Connect with Catherine to learn more about her work.

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At Codex, prioritising employee wellbeing is ingrained in our culture. We recognise that a healthy and supported team leads to innovation and success. Through our Codex Cares Programme and a supportive work environment, we ensure that every team member can thrive personally and professionally.

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