Your how-to: Establishing a basic wellness challenge or activity
Establishing a basic wellness challenge or activity at your place of work is an initiative aimed to boost the mental wellbeing of your employees. It involves conceptualising, planning, and executing activities that promote healthy habits, both physically and psychologically.
Wellness challenges can vary in nature, though they often include activities like regular exercise, mindfulness exercises, healthy eating or stress reduction techniques. They generally tend to be structured as programs running for a set period, often a month or a week, with tracking measures in place to encourage participation and monitor progress.
In the Australian context, establishing an employee wellness program that aligns with "Safe Work Australia’s National Guide for Work-related Psychological Health and Safety" is a good place to start. It’s crucial to ensure all activity is compliant with Australian Work Health and Safety legislation and that activities respect diversity and make reasonable adjustments for differing abilities and needs.
Remember, the primary goal is to foster a healthy work environment and promote continuous improvement in employees' mental health. This reaps benefits for the organisation as well, contributing to increased productivity and employee engagement.
Step by step instructions
Identify Your Wellness Goals: Firstly, clarify what you're trying to achieve with your wellness challenge. Are you aiming to improve employees' physical health, reduce stress levels, or perhaps promote mindfulness? By identifying your goal, you can tailor the activities to meet your needs.
Design the Wellness Challenge: Based on your target goals and the makeup of your team, start designing the wellness challenge. This could be a month-long step count competition, weekly yoga classes, or daily mindfulness exercises. Keep the challenge fun, engaging and relevant.
Communicate the Challenge: Once the challenge has been designed and complies with necessary legislation, effectively communicate it to all your employees. This could be through a launch event, emails, or posters around the office.
Evaluate the Challenge: After completion of the wellness challenge, gather feedback from participants to learn what worked well and areas that could be improved. This will help in planning future wellness challenges or activities.
Know Your Team: Understanding the diversity of your workforce is crucial before you introduce any wellness activity. Take into account the differing needs, abilities, and interests of your employees. Think in terms of age, fitness level, dietary needs, and personal preferences.
Align with Australian Legislation: Ensure that your planned wellness challenge complies with "Safe Word Australia's National Guide for Work-related Psychological Health and Safety". This is vitally important to protect both the employees and the organisation.
Implement the Challenge: In this stage, activities for the wellness challenge begin. Keep promoting the challenge and engagement amongst the employees via regular reminders and updates. Make sure to keep track of participation and any necessary adjustments along the way.
Reflect and Breathe: This step can be challenging, so it's important to take a moment to breathe and reflect. Pause to consider the progress made, the obstacles encountered, and the lessons learned. This reflection will not only help in gaining clarity but also in maintaining a balanced perspective, allowing for thoughtful and deliberate decision-making moving forward.
Use this template to implement
To ensure you can execute seamlessly, download the implementation template.
Pitfalls to avoid
Ignoring employees' opinions can lead to a lack of engagement and participation in the wellness challenge.
Complex rules can discourage participation by making the challenge seem difficult or burdensome.
Without clear and measurable goals, it is difficult to assess the success of the challenge.
Overlooking the diverse needs and abilities of employees can make the challenge inaccessible to some.
Failing to monitor progress and provide support can reduce the effectiveness of the wellness challenge.
Poor communication about the challenge can result in low awareness and participation.