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Written by Tammie Wessels
Senior HR Consultant and Workshop Facilitator
Vertical Bridge HR (Health Bridge HR’s Sister Company)
Workplace wellness is about organizations taking a proactive approach to ensuring the health and wellbeing of their workforce. By focusing on the wellness of employees, organizations can help prevent issues with mental and physical health, reducing stress levels and absenteeism and ultimately improving performance. When the organization leads the way by promoting knowledge and awareness around the importance of workplace wellness, it encourages their workforce to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing.
1. Define and Support Wellness
How does your organization define and support wellness for its people? During the hiring process, sharing your organization’s commitment to the well-being of its workforce may be a deciding factor when the candidate is deciding on a job offer with your organization.
“When organizations understand and support workplace wellness, employees will feel encouraged to consistently bring their best selves to work every day and, when that happens, everybody wins!”
2. Encourage Rational and Positive Thinking
A central foundation of wellness is to encourage and practice rational and positive thinking. The key to mastering rational and positive thinking is developing self-awareness of your thought process. When people are more aware of the way they think, they can take action to use positive situations to their advantage, and to re-shape the negative ones. The goal is to think positively, regardless of the situation, and make a conscious effort to see opportunities instead of obstacles; this helps to enhance the feeling of wellness.

3. Understand the Six Dimensions of Wellness
The Six Dimensions of Wellness, as developed by Dr. Bill Hettler, co-Founder of the National Wellness Institute, can provide an effective framework for developing a workplace wellness program.
- Occupational – encourages and recognizes the need for personal satisfaction and enrichment in one’s life through work
- Physical – encourages and recognizes one’s need for regular physical activity and promotes learning about diet and nutrition
- Social – encourages and recognizes the positive impact of contributing to one’s environment and community
- Intellectual – encourages and recognizes one’s need for stimulating mental activities and for sharing their knowledge and skills with others
- Spiritual – encourages and recognizes one’s desire to search for meaning and purpose and to act consistently with their beliefs and values
- Emotional – encourages and recognizes awareness and acceptance of one’s feelings, which includes the capacity to manage one’s own feelings and related behaviours and the ability to cope effectively with stress
4. Support and Encourage Work-Life Balance
These days, work-life balance can seem like an impossible feat. Technology makes employees accessible around the clock. Fears of job losses mean people feel the need to work longer hours. This can damage work and social relationships, and impact on health and overall wellness.
Here are some things to consider when looking to support improvement of work-life balance and wellness for both you and your team:
- Unplug – technology has helped our lives in many ways, but it has also set expectations of being constantly available to work. Phone notifications interrupt your time away from work and create stress. Make quality time true quality time
- Exercise – for many people, one of the most crucial needs – exercise – is often the first thing to go when their calendars fill up. Exercise is an effective stress reducer. It pumps feel-good endorphins through your body which helps lift your mood
- Limit time-wasting activities and people – first, identify what’s most important in your life. Next, set boundaries so you can devote quality time to your priorities
- Change the structure of your life – instead of trying to do everything, focus on activities you specialize in and value most. When possible, delegate or outsource
- Develop a Wellness Action Plan – by developing a plan, individuals must actively support their own wellness by taking ownership of practical steps to address personal triggers. This process can also help managers to create an open dialogue with their employees, to better understand their needs and experiences and ultimately better support them
- Start small – always keep in mind that when we try to make drastic changes too quickly, the change tends to be very short-lived. It is better to start with small, incremental changes that are much more likely to hold in the long-term

5. Monitor Workplace Dynamics
About the Author
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