Employee dissatisfaction is bad for business. Whether employees feel this way due to a toxic workplace, substandard compensation or benefits, continuous overworking or high levels of burnout from stress, the results are the same: a negatively impacted bottom line.
How can companies combat these detriments? Simple: Invest in organizational health. Over the past few years, more and more businesses are realizing the importance of prioritizing the health and mental wellbeing of their employees. To best protect employees — the most important asset for a company — comes down to successfully implementing a holistic and inclusive approach commonly referred to as a “healthy organization.”
What does a healthy organization entail? Essentially, it’s a structure that addresses workplace safety, physical health, mental wellbeing, financial fitness, social health and a strong company culture. Drawing on these elements of workplace wellness and enhancing them throughout every level of the organization creates an environment where employees feel more empowered, valued and supported.
It also offers these employees a place where they can thrive professionally and personally. A healthy organization revolves around developing a culture that promotes overall wellbeing. This health and security extend to social connectedness, career growth, emotional wellbeing, and community involvement.
Studies show that implementing such a culture of wellness is associated with many improved measures of organizational health. These include higher levels of employee engagement and performance. Those same studies also show that when a company invests in the health of employees, so too do the employees themselves. The result is an improvement in healthy behaviors and lifestyle choices, such as increasing physical activity and healthy eating.
Becoming a healthy organization and realizing these benefits requires companies to move beyond traditional approaches. From programs designed to incentivize fitness to initiatives that foster a more connected culture, launching a holistic approach encompassing all aspects of the workplace environment is vital.
The first step is to understand better the structure and various factors of a healthy organization. With this, a company may begin to introduce changes. Such changes could include providing employees access to healthy lifestyle programs and mental health resources, such as EAPs. It may also mean carefully considering the shifting employee expectations on compensation and workplace flexibility. Often, it’s very constructive to partner with a professional employer organization (PEO) when rolling out improvements. With this type of full-service human resource outsourcing, a business can better utilize robust HR services and technology, supporting these strategic initiatives and helping them find lasting success.
If you want to learn more about healthy organizations and ways to implement changes, please see the accompanying resource.
This infographic was created by Insperity, experts on outsourced HR services and more
