How to be well at work and in life with all the chaos surrounding us is the question we have all been asking. However, now more than ever business owners need to meet employee expectations for well-being.

Employees are learning the importance of how to be well holistically, and it is critical to attract and retain top talent by investing in supporting their mental health. This means that companies may need to implement a more integrated approach to wellness at work which includes mental, emotional, and social health.

Business leaders who encourage training that help support employees’ mental health and help educate them about how to be well are painting a brighter future for their business. 2022 is the third year of the pandemic and nothing is normal about the way we live and work.

The disruptions and mental health fallout from COVID-19, economic uncertainty, and social unrest continue which is affecting the workforce more than in 2020. As a result, employees who are experiencing mental health challenges from burnout, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and substance use problems are all seeking how to be well.

People now focus on what matters most to them and are only prepared to stick around if it is going to support their well-being.

This is an incredible opportunity for businesses across industries to question the status quo. Keep reading to learn how you can make the shift happen.

Learn How To Be Well At Work & Life

It is time to reinvent old ways of thinking and learn how to support workforce mental health. Businesses need to introduce tools to demonstrate how to be well at work and in life. We must see mindset as both a moral imperative and a core strategy to sustain employers’ most vital resource – their people.

This includes breaking down long-standing barriers to mental health care inherent in traditional health insurance networks and employee assistance programs (EAPs). We can learn to embrace a holistic strategy that addresses pervasive workforce mental health challenges including stigma and unsupportive work cultures.

Learn to position your business in our ever-changing work environment by enrolling in our FutureFit Courses.

Mindset Is Top Of Mind

A variety of factors have impacted the well-being of employees over the past two years, but the pandemic took the biggest toll.

Employees experienced illness and loss among family or friends and navigated periods of physical and social isolation. After experiencing phases of hybrid or remote work and juggling increasingly complex caregiver responsibilities for children who were sent home from school for several months – how to be well is at the forefront of our minds.

According to a Calm for Business survey, 40% of workers say their employers have not done enough to address mental health. There is also evidence that alcohol and substance misuse is on the rise.

Why Is Mindset Important At Work?

Well-being at work is ‘the state of employees’ mental and physical health.’ We often forget to focus on learning how to be well for the longevity of our careers. Usually dynamics within, and sometimes outside, of the workplace start to affect our mindset.

Traditionally, it was a procedure to only focus on physical health at work through workplace health and safety protocols, specifically with job-related injury and illness. Employees began to question how to be well when most places were only concerned with issues around COVID, like vaccines, masking, office closures, and safety protocols.

Now since COVID, business leaders and managers are aware of the impact of challenges experienced by employees outside the physical workplace such as personal loss, caregiving responsibilities, and more. These deter from our ability to learn how to be well and can have a detrimental effect inside the workplace.

The effect of stress on employees’ well-being and on business operations is colossal. That is why our courses will help you navigate this changing environment.

Seeking Meaningful Support

Since employees are learning how to be well in an ever-changing environment, their needs are changing.

As a result, they require more meaningful support, but certain workplaces are increasingly toxic. Research reports high rates of toxic behavior, including distrust and resentment, as well as egregious conduct like bullying, harassment, and discrimination. 

These types of work settings can seriously damage employee health and well-being.

This means high levels of stress and serious mental health issues, which can include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, anxiety, and depression, as well as physical health issues like high blood pressure.

To stop this behavior, we suggest business owners follow our strategies to help attract and retain talented employees among the Great Resignation.

3 Effective Strategies To Create Healthy Work Mindsets

If we want to learn how to be well as business owners and employees at work, then we must have a broader focus on holistic health.

This includes the following areas:

• Mental wellness, including stress and burnout.
• Work environment stressors that affect psychological safety.
• Inclusion and belonging.

1) Boost Employee Mindset

To encourage an environment that focuses on how to be well business owners must address mental health needs.

Employers can open discussions around mental health or stress. For example, leaders can share their own challenges in dealing with the added pressures of the pandemic and other environmental impacts.

Business owners can take a course that helps them understand how to be well at work and how to prioritize mental health for employees by standardizing ways to address and manage stress and burnout.

We suggest:

• Monitoring workloads and schedules, including reprioritizing or eliminating non-priority assignments or tasks.
• Encouraging employees to use vacation time and paid time off (PTO).
• Providing regular breaks during work hours.
• Offering flexible working arrangements, like working remotely, flex-scheduling, and virtual check-ins.
• Avoid contacting employees after normal working hours.
• Model wellness strategies themselves, by taking PTO or working remotely.

Business owners could also offer information, resources, and access to mental health-related services that teach them how to be well in all areas of life.

2) Reduce Stress At Work

The stress employees experience has to do with their employer. Your focus must be on ensuring your workers know how to be well at work by having a safe, non-toxic workplace culture.

That means addressing environmental stressors that affect employees’ psychological safety and well-being, like toxic managers and work environments, microaggressions, and online harassment.

We recommend addressing toxic workplace stressors continuously to have a long-term effect.

Ideas for addressing toxic conditions include:

• Analyzing your written company values against day-to-day reality. Are your core values reinforced or undermined through leaders’ actions, policy decisions, and employee recognition mechanisms?
• Deploying companywide training focused on preventing harassment, bullying, and discrimination.
• Evaluating all employees on their efforts to support a positive work environment.
• Imposing meaningful consequences when employees and leaders engage in toxic, biased, or harassing behavior.

3) Belonging And Inclusion

How can everybody learn how to be well without inclusivity at the workplace? Employees must understand that their opinions and their work are important.

Ensuring employees feel like they belong at work is especially crucial in hybrid and remote environments where they might feel more isolated from their colleagues.

How to be well at work means building diverse, inclusive, psychologically safe environments where employees feel welcomed and valued as their full selves. They need to feel that they can express their perspectives, ideas, and their identities – race, gender, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and more – without judgment.

Investing in a growth mindset or agility course for managers and employees can teach everyone how to be well in the workplace environment.

Training gives employees the tools to be inclusive and help their colleagues feel like they belong in their everyday interactions, across all aspects of the work experience.

Healthy Minds Equals Healthy Business

We feel that taking a broader, holistic view of well-being at work not only benefits employees but business owners too.

When employees know how to be well physically, mentally, socially, and emotionally they will help build a workforce that is highly engaged, productive, and creative.

Making well-being a priority in your business can also reduce health plan costs and absenteeism, which can also improve business outcomes.

Looking for additional ways you can make 2022 a healthy business year? FutureFit Academy offers training that will help expand your company’s approach to keeping employees healthy and supporting their well-being through our Cultural Adaptability and Growth Mindset courses.

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