The professional landscape is completely unrecognizable when compared to what it was even a few short years ago, and the remote work revolution brought on by COVID-19 is only the tip of the iceberg.
Deep-rooted attitudes about work ethic, traditional business hours and what employers and employees should expect from each other are beginning to be challenged and reexamined. Business leaders are wising up to the idea that meeting the unique wellness needs of each employee has a direct and beneficial impact on their engagement in the workplace.
Luckily for companies struggling to adapt to this new landscape, wellness experts are leveraging their expertise toward the challenge of building healthier workplaces and setting employees up for long-term success. One such expert is Jackie McNamara, director of wellness strategies, WellnessIQ, a full-service wellness consultant agency based in Independence.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, most C-suite executives and benefits administrators saw wellness programs as perks they were expected to offer but may not have personally invest in them or properly incentivize employees to take part. McNamara believes that perception is changing in the wake of the recent public health crisis.
“Employees are getting more burned out,” McNamara said. “Clearly, everybody shared an extreme amount of stress and that looked differently for everybody. It really forced employers to invest in well-being.”
Beyond biometrics
Traditionally, wellness programs tied to insurance benefits have taken the form of monitoring physical health indicators such as heart rate, blood pressure and the number of steps taken in a day. The pandemic exposed the need for employers to take emotional health into greater account, according to McNamara.
“I think, traditionally, employers looked at physical wellness to start,” she said. “Nutrition, movement, sleep, tracking steps, biometric screenings – but they hadn’t quite yet gotten to making a business case for emotional health. And with the pandemic, everybody wanted emotional health.”
Several studies indicate that employees who feel supported not only in terms of physical health but in mental well-being tend to experience greater job satisfaction and exhibit greater productivity. In addition to this new focus on mental health, the pandemic also highlighted the case for greater flexibility in professional settings.
“Things like flexible work hours and changing your view on back-to-back meetings; those things really came to fruition in the pandemic and they’re living on now,” McNamara said. “The job market has never been more competitive – if you don’t have these things, most people are saying ‘forget it.’”
Some companies find it difficult to shift their remote work policies across to accommodate all employees, but consultants like WellnessIQ can assist with the transition.
Staying flexible to stay competitive
The transformation of the modern workplace has had a significant impact on the field of talent acquisition and retention. Companies are finding it more difficult to attract quality hires without offering flexibility in terms of remote work options and fluid scheduling.
McNamara said she sees policies that allow employees to set their own hours catching on, adding that striking a balance between flexibility and a lack of boundaries is one of the defining challenges of the modern era.
“I think it’s different for every individual person, so coaching around what’s available and what that person can work around is a really important distinguishing factor,” McNamara said. “You have to support the individual employee. Some companies may ask you to track your hours, while some may just look at productivity and if you’re getting your work done. Ultimately, there needs to be some way to measure success, but I do think that the key to wellness in all of that is for the individual employee to understand what keeps them healthy and happy.”
Empowering individuals
Whether your employees need flexible schedules or a dedicated “mindfulness room” to rest in, McNamara said open, ongoing communication is the key to identifying each individual’s needs and meeting them where they are. One way of doing this is to establish “wellness committees” to faithfully represent the needs of each sector of your business.
“When you have somebody representing the voice of each department, then you really get that day-to-day perspective,” McNamara said. “If you don’t have that wellness committee, you have one person or one team making decisions for everyone.”
Another influential movement in the workplace landscape that McNamara emphasizes is the concept of resiliency. By prioritizing their mental wellness and adjusting their professional life to better suit their needs, employees can build a vital life skill.
“Resiliency is not denying stress, or denying human emotions, it is learning how to appropriately respond to those. It’s not the action that’s going to change, it’s how we perceive that action. All that means is training our brains differently,” McNamara said. “We’ve trained our brains for so long to work longer hours and work harder and we take pride in having two phones and always having our computer open.
“The idea behind brain training — which is neuroplasticity, the ability of your brain to change — is unteaching that,” she added. “It’s teaching your brain when to say no, how to set healthy boundaries, how to have difficult conversations and why wellness matters for a healthy brain. Resiliency really is just (incorporating) all of those things and over time, you learn how to better respond in the moment when something stressful happens.”
Even though COVID-19 gave this cultural shift a push in the right direction, McNamara believes this change has been a long time in the making. Now that the tide has turned, employers who want a happy, productive staff will need to rethink the traditional methods of management and trust employees to do what’s best for themselves.
“I think COVID has forced the hand of the entire culture to do what we’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” McNamara said. “Empowered employees, when they get that flexibility, true colors show. You see who the good workers are, who the ones who take advantage are. I see this as us getting to a more efficient workforce.”
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