WORKPLACE WELLNESS
Increasing burnout, anxiety and stress reports are triggering higher focus on employee wellbeing, and the growth of wellness alternatives for companies. It was not too long ago, wellness models in working environments were introduced to overcome the challenges corporations are facing. Such identified increases in the results of poor physical and mental health in the workplace, has been leading the efforts to address the 'disease–health' work-related continuum. Research in this field has provided strategies for reducing physical and mental distress and enjoying a healthy job.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2019):
‘A healthy job is likely to be one where the pressures on employees are appropriate in relation to their abilities and resources, to the amount of control they have over their work, and to the support they receive from people who matter to them’.
A healthy work environment is one in which personnel have made health and health promotion a priority and part of their working lives. The efforts to achieve these healthy workplace environments are now called workplace wellness.
Workplace wellness is understood as any work-related health-promotion programmes, activities, initiatives and policies that encourage healthy behaviours and outcomes. Examples include a continuous assessment of risks to health, medical screening, provision of appropriate information and training on health issues and health-promoting organisational support practices and structures.
Workplace wellness activities can be categorised as:
- Primary prevention programmes. These programmes target a fairly healthy population with the purpose of encouraging healthy behaviours (for example stress management, exercise, fitness and nutrition)
- Secondary programmes. These programs address employees with factors that are considered a risk (for example 'quitting' programmes for smokers)
- Tertiary programmes. These are programmes that assist health problems and aim to diminish illnesses that individuals already have.
Here at NCG:Corporate, we provide evaluation and optimisation of existing corporate wellness programmes, design and implementation of new tailored programmes, and proactive coaching and training in optimising the performance of the brain and mental health.