You don’t have to look too far to find support for workplace wellness programs. Studies will show the long-term benefits of improving overall health awareness are; improved productivity and job satisfaction, lower absenteeism and use of sick time, and an overall boost in morale, to name a few.
It’s hard to argue against the value of any of these results.
Having recently rolled out a wellness program, with an emphasis on moving (taking simple steps), the benefits are already visible. With the encouragement of an in-house wellness champion, our organization elected to start with a month long ‘just move’ campaign using the very popular personal step tracker by FitBit. The company purchased the basic FitBit for every employee and developed a group on the FitBit website to track and share the total number of steps per person. Then we just let the fun begin.
The immediate value we experienced included the following;
• Internal competition, of the healthy variety,
• Increased movement; people got up from their desks more often and parked further away from the building entrance,
• Planning of activities before or after work to get more steps,
• Sharing of suggestions on how to get more steps, and
• Greater focus on healthy eating
These are all great outcomes of a month-long wellness activity. The best outcome, however, has been seeing the team interaction and the positive encouragement demonstrated for one another. While moving more is healthier – the additional value seen in our workplace is that it simply feels like a happier place. A happier and healthier workplace is good business.
For more tips on workplace wellness programs, please reach out to Genesis HR Solutions at AskUs@genesishrsolutions.com or 800-367-8367.
Genesis HR Solutions is the premier PEO provider for Massachusetts based businesses.
