After a challenging 2020, Australian businesses are encouraged to proactively prioritise employees’ health and wellbeing in the New Year, particularly with more Australians shifting to working from home or other flexible working arrangements.
Readiness is a Melbourne based complete digital wellbeing platform aimed at improving the mental health of all Australians. It uses strategies derived from elite sport to help educate and proactively prioritise holistic wellbeing. Through regular and quick assessments, the platform monitors employee mental and physical health and provides personalised solutions and resources to help improve focus areas including mental health, sleep, nutrition, stress and exercise.
One Victorian based workplace that is proactively working to improve health and wellbeing for their employees is St Kilda Football Club.
The CEO of St Kilda Football Club, Matt Finnis, said that using an external platform like Readiness to monitor employee wellbeing is an initiative the Club has taken to aid in supporting its people’s performance and wellbeing in a challenging year.
“Readiness provides our employees with regular monitoring and tailored wellbeing educational resources that helps them to prioritise and improve aspects of their wellbeing across mind, body and sleep.
We are pleased to see improvements in staff mental health (10%), body performance (14%) and sleep (4.5%) ratings throughout the year, particularly given the stresses faced as a result of work interruptions, living away from home and Covid-19 lockdown restrictions,” said Mr Finnis.
Simon Kearney, the co-founder of Readiness and a former Sports Scientist working with elite athletes, said that focussing on the whole picture when it comes to employee wellbeing can help improve performance in both the workplace and in the employee’s life.
“There is a tendency to only focus on mental health when we talk about wellbeing, but for employees to perform at their best, they need to ensure that there is a focus on holistic wellbeing and there is the right balance of mind, body and sleep. Once you find that balance, there will be a clear improvement in daily performance in both work and life,” said Mr Kearney.
Simon Kearney explained that the benefits for prioritising employee health and wellbeing were incredibly clear. “Businesses who put health and wellbeing front and centre have reduced absenteeism and increased staff retention. Employees have higher morale, increased productivity and are less likely to take sick days,” he said.
For more information on Readiness, visit: http://www.readiness.org.au/
Top tips to improving health and wellbeing in the workplace in 2021 by Simon Kearney, Sports Scientist and Co- Founder of Readiness:
Prioritise your workplace culture
Organisational leaders need to ensure they are prioritising workplace culture and building a positive and open environment. Look at how you can better provide a mentally healthy workplace – offer flexible working hours, monitor staff workloads and provide encouragement. Leaders should also think about whether they are contributing to an ‘always on’ culture in their businesses which doesn’t support people having time to switch off, like answering emails after hours, or working during holidays.
Ensure wellbeing benefits are accessible
With changing workplaces and a lean to more flexible working setups, employers need to ensure that any wellbeing benefits in your organisation are accessible to all employees, including those outside the physical office. This might mean that if you are offering lunchtime yoga or meditation sessions, people can participate via ZOOM if they are out of the office.
Be committed to early intervention
Encourage staff to seek help early before it becomes a major issue. By providing proactive wellbeing education to staff, you can help your employees feel comfortable discussing any issues they might be facing. Offering an employee wellness platform or tool, like Readiness, gives staff the education and resources they need to thrive in a workplace.
Make employee wellbeing a year-round commitment
It is important that we prioritise employee wellbeing all year round, not just during Mental Health Month October or on R U OK? Day. Employees need to know they have support whenever they might need it.