5 Creative Ways to Boost Workplace Wellness
Weekly Intention Setting
Invite your team to share their personal intentions for the week. Allowing just one minute per person during a weekly team meeting invites the whole person to the table, and isn’t as much of a distraction as you might initially think. As team members learn about each other over time, they get a glimpse of who their colleagues really are, the types of challenges they deal with, what motivates them, and what they care about. In the long run, this will lead to greater understanding, improved teamwork, and a sense of belonging that will aid with employee retention.
2. Wellness Perks
When budgets are allocated towards treating your employees, we recommend thoughtfully using these opportunities to show that you truly care about employee wellness. Creative wellness-promoting perks could be: surprising your team with smoothies or a healthy snack, providing gift cards to a wellness spa, doing team IVs (e.g. before or after a big project), or gifting supplements. A month before each RUNGA event, we send Quicksilver Scientific Immune Charge to each of our team members to boost their immune system and help ensure their good health. After the event, we get IVs together to refill their tanks and demonstrate our commitment to their wellbeing.
3. Weekly Gratitude Practice
One of our favorite practices for cultivating gratitude and appreciation in corporate settings is hosting weekly gratitude circles. This can be done as part of a team meeting or a regular ritual towards the end of the week. While you could make it more elaborate, we recommend keeping it simple and having each person share just one event or action they were grateful for that day or week in the office. Usually, people are most grateful for actions of their co-workers that eased their workload or improved their state of mind.
Science has proven that what we focus on does indeed grow stronger, and this is a powerful way to improve positive feelings associated with work. In addition to fostering a sense of gratitude for peers and work opportunities, employees will become acutely aware of the positive impacts of their actions, as well as enjoy a boost in morale when their own positive actions are recognized—a powerful recipe for improving company culture.
4. Play Uplifting Music
Using appropriate opportunities to play uplifting music is one of our favorite recommendations for in-person companies. Music can totally transform the energy in an environment, and using break times or meals to play songs can uplift moods, boost energy levels, and motivate your employees. In the very least, it sends a clear message that someone cares about their emotional health.
5. Big Dream Accountability
Companies are starting to recognize the importance of nurturing their employees’ hobbies and aspirations beyond the workplace, and we strongly believe in keeping your employees remembering what they live for! It’s so easy in today’s world to get caught up with work and productivity, paying bills, taking care of a household… but everyone has dreams and aspirations that transcend the workplace and may not fit neatly into any of the “essential” categories of their lives. These dreams can include running a marathon, losing weight, or writing a children’s book, among many others.
Why not let work be a place where people are held accountable for those dreams? Rather than become a distraction, we firmly believe this makes passionate individuals more likely to put their best foot forward at work. They will feel accepted for who they are and encouraged by the colleagues that will hold them accountable, building a sense of community. And last, the execution of many of these big dreams are proven to build character that translates to better output at work. For example, runners tend to be great at enduring high workloads, and writers tend to be great at creative thinking. It’s a win-win.
