Article: Physical Wellness

This month we challenge you to enable your employees’ physical wellness. In January, we challenged you to promote the mental wellness of yourself and your employees. Research suggests that mental and physical health are related. February is National Self-Check Month. To promote physical (and mental) wellness, consider sharing a list of the most common health checks individuals can do at home. Self-checks improve health outcomes by helping individuals detect and prevent physical and mental health issues before they become more serious.

Is this sounding like an individual challenge? What if we told you, as leaders, that you have influence over if and how your employees care for themselves? Of course, you’re not responsible for their decisions as individuals, but you can and should create a physical and cultural environment that allows your employees the time and space to make healthy choices. How are you enabling your teams to take care of themselves during National Self-Check Month? Read on for examples of how you can promote physical wellness in your workforce.

How to promote physical wellness at work

1. Educate and assess:  Engage experts, share information, and promote healthy habits. Consider distributing this physical wellness checklist with your colleagues to promote individual and collective health.
2. Examine your culture. Does your culture encourage an always-on mentality? Examine the routines you encourage by example. Your team needs time to unplug and they need the OK to get up and move.
3. Make exercise easy and available. We’ve covered this in previous challenges. Enable exercise by making it easy, available, and fun. Consider walk-and-talk meetings and team challenges as an easy place to start.
4. Consider a flexible workplace ecosystem. This flexibility allows individuals to make healthy food and exercise choices part of their routine. Bonus: You’ll contain productivity draining illnesses by affording individuals the ability to work from home when sick.
5. Breathe easy with air quality. Indoor air quality impacts cognitive function and decision making. Take steps to clear the air in office spaces.

Is your organization promoting physical wellness? Contact us to learn more about how you can creatively promote physical wellness in your workplace. CEEK a Better Way!