Human capital drives company value as wellness at work programmes prevail

Does a company first perform well, which allows it to provide a better workplace to employees? Or is the inverse the case – does an organization provide a positive environment initially, which enables performance to follow?

It is a well-known fact that the happiest of employees and workers are significantly more productive in the workplace. A global study cites a 12 percent increased productivity level.

The Irish government has introduced new tax breaks for companies to reduce obesity levels by installing showers, bikes and other exercise equipment in the workplace dating back to last January.

The question is whether perks and benefits, which some companies introduce, matter to individual employees ultimately. Naturally human beings are incentivised by competition and bonuses for increased results and productivity. The key preoccupations of an average medium-sized Irish company’s staff are thought to be the high value they place on the business culture, on their own career opportunities and advancement prospects and on senior leadership.

Positive business practices are preferred which all result in higher profitability through higher levels of productivity, on higher customer satisfaction and on employee engagement. These positive practices may seem obvious but are key and comprise of fostering a culture of collaboration, avoiding a blame culture by forgiving mistakes and allowing the scope for mistakes to be made and easily remedied thereafter with appropriate inductive supports and thereby emphasising the meaningfulness of work.

Does the chicken come before the egg?

It is generally appreciated that employees and workers employed in companies where leadership visibly demonstrated support for their wellbeing felt more motivated to do their best, they reported higher levels of job satisfaction and had better relationships with co-workers. The basic premise is that being engaged and happy at work is prioritised for a positive work culture.

Wellness and the wellbeing of the person employed, feeds into the whole business’s holistic wellness generally. It is dependent on the shared vision of the business or organisation and employees can have a significant input into improving a pre-existing business culture. Its common practice to contract in the expertise of Business Wellness Coaches to work with employees collectively and individually in group work approaches and this reflects the shared vision and plan from the business management which is written into their policies for procedures and practices.

It’s is expected that these measures will mitigate in the long-term against any possibilities of occupational stress or ill health.

According to one Carlow-based training consultant, innovative ideas are welcomed from staff in relation to the improvements that can be effected in their own lives as well as in relation to a myriad of practices at work which promote significant improvements that they will then buy into as they have been part of the solution.

Some incentives have been the promotion of wellness in nature by creating company gardens; hiring in horticulturalists to design and create sensory gardens, allotments, on site which staff can actively spend time in and partake of growing their own organically grown produce from aquaponics and aeroponics systems and even building an outdoor pizza oven. These are all tangible incentives with longevity and focuses on looking after one’s physical health as well as operating screening programmes for cardiac problems, coronary heart disease and diabetes, which are established health risk areas.

Therefore the majority of employee wellness programmes mainly revolve around stress management strategies, employee engagement, mental health promotion, physical health and fitness promotion; community engagement and volunteering programmes as well as mindfulness, screen breaks, and ergonomic comfort assessments which have impacts positively.

All of these allied with flexibility and autonomy of work practices in relation to family commitments as the cornerstones can only improve trust and therefore employee retention, is excellent for corporate social responsibility and improves the bottom line for all concerned.

The ESRI Report of 2016 is noteworthy in that it names the two biggest work-related disorders as being musculo-skeletal disorders at 50 percent and stress, anxiety and depression at 18 percent.

The objective is to enable our workforce to flourish, to learn to be open to new learnings, to share and find solutions regularly in their working environment as well as to look after their own personal wellbeing. It may well be time we evolved sufficiently as a civilized society to get in that clutch of chickens and collect the eggs.