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With businesses around the world reopened and employees returning to the office, it’s more important than ever for companies to support the health and wellness of their workforce. The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the need to create safe and healthy workplaces for employees, and because culture starts at the top, it’s up to leaders to continue prioritizing their team members’ health and well-being.
Below, 19 Forbes Coaches Council members offer simple yet effective ways for leaders to promote employee health and wellness in the workplace. From providing healthy snacks to encouraging breaks and physical activity, these actionable tips can help business leaders create a healthy and productive work environment for their teams.
1. Invest In Employees’ Growth And Development
Create an environment where people come to the office to grow. By investing in your employees’ development, you show them that you care. Maintain an active dialogue about their individual goals for the year and how you can help support their progress. Create targeted stretch assignments, and offer training, coaching, mentoring and networking opportunities to support their ongoing development. - Andrea Miller, Veritas Leadership, LLC
2. Adopt ‘Day Breaks’
Every company should adopt what I like to call “day breaks.” I have a client who introduces day breaks to corporations that have office employees. This is where the day-break team takes employees to an off-site meeting and teaches them relaxation routines, such as chair yoga, stretching, nutrition hacks and sleep sessions. Employers and employees can’t wait to call in “well” instead of “sick!” - Katrina Roddy, The Corporate Breakup, LLC
3. Have Better-Quality Conversations
Have better-quality conversations; slow down and make it more human. Expand your practice of empathy and get more deeply curious about your people. Folks navigate life’s complexities and bumps every day. What goes a long way is feeling that you are seen and you are heard. One of leadership’s most valuable gifts is to simply bear witness to your people’s lived experiences and to make space for their voices. - Duncan Skelton, Duncan Skelton Coaching Ltd
4. Be Mindful Of Work Style Preferences
Workforce planning is critical for those coming back to offices. Extroverted people crave being around others, but perhaps other teammates prefer (and excel when) working from home. Being mindful of styles is important. Also, just because people may be in an office setting does not mean that you need more meetings. Encouraging breaks and investing in ergonomics and healthy food choices can help. - Denise Russo, Maxwell Leadership
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5. Exemplify Healthy Habits
Leaders first need to be exemplars of healthy behaviors and demonstrate intolerance for unhealthy ones. This includes cultivating lifestyle habits as well as creating a high-performance culture that prioritizes performance and accomplishment over activity. It is also critical to foster an environment of competence and self-direction, where employees are responsible for their own welfare and each other’s. - Philip Liebman, ALPS Leadership
6. Ask Questions And Listen Deeply
The people returning to the office aren’t the same people who left. People have had varying experiences. Some have been greatly impacted personally by the pandemic, while others may appear to have come out relatively unscathed. Ask questions and seek to understand their experience and how to best help them reengage in the office. - Kimberly Svoboda, Aspiration Catalyst®
7. Set Up Monthly One-On-Ones
Leaders can have a monthly one-on-one conversation with each of their direct reports that serves as a time and space for them to bring up any wellness challenges they might be facing. This conversation needs to be informal, not centered around work, and undertaken in a spirit of compassion and empathetic curiosity. The leader also needs to be mindful and able to tune into nonverbal cues. - S. Venkatesh, Mainspring Advisors LLP
8. Embrace Flexibility And Trust
Remember, this is not a return to “business as usual.” While people are returning to the office, the world and everyone’s lives have been permanently changed. As leaders, we all must expand our skills and comfort zones in adapting to the new reality of office presence, and embrace the flexibility and trust required to lead in the new workplace environment. - Tonya Echols, Vigere
9. Don’t Disappear
When you are no longer in the same space physically, it is easy to lose those normal daily touch points that form the culture and enable trust in the manager-employee relationship. Managers need to create more opportunities for individual catch-ups that are not just performance- or productivity-based—not as a way of checking up, but rather as a way of catching up and showing care. - Anita O’Connor-Roberts, AOC Consulting
10. Help Your Team Be A Team
People learned to go it alone. That brought freedom and flexibility. It also brought misaligned efforts. Bring your team together to align on shared success. This is simpler than people think. What does shared success look like? How do we help each other get there? When people come to see their team as a source of support and solutions, their health and wellness win too. - Maureen Cunningham, Up Until Now Inc.
11. Create A Cadence For Connection
A majority of the workforce is dealing with symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder from the abrupt nature of the situation that forced us into a new way of working. As we come back to the office, collaboration becomes key to one’s ability to embrace in-person work again. If we do not focus on how we collaborate and meet and just expect individuals to embrace the culture we had before, we will fail. - Elliott Blodgett, Flyway
12. Offer Long-Term Time Off
Coming back into the office means that many people will be adding time for commuting back into their day, which could have been used for health and wellness. Research tells us that more time off is the best way to avoid burnout, with sabbaticals being at the top of that list. More and more companies are offering long-term time off, which helps people come back to work refreshed, showing gratitude and performing at very high levels. - Carmelina Piedra, CareerCoachingPro
13. Offer A Hybrid Model
One practice that can advance wellness is offering a hybrid model, where people are allowed to choose a day to not come into the office and to work from home. Then, ask in quarterly check-ins how people are adjusting to the return. This allows you to do a pulse check of everyone on the team. - Brent McHugh, Christar International
14. Keep The Lines Of Communication Open
When we were all working from home, everyone was in the same situation. With a return to the office, recognize that each team member is facing a different set of challenges in resetting that personal-professional balance. Ask how you can make the transition smoother. Encourage the team to share best practices with one another. Open communication builds trust. - Kathleen Woodhouse, Nova Leadership
15. Have One-On-Ones Outside
I’m a huge supporter of one-on-one meetings with staff—weekly, if possible. As people return to the office, change up the location of where and how you meet. The weather is warming up, so go for a walk or sit outside. The change of scenery and fresh air will create an inviting and psychologically safe environment. - Joyel Crawford, Crawford Leadership Strategies, LLC.
16. Put Team Members In The Best Position To Succeed
Just as a great sports coach would, business leaders need to put their “players” in the best position to be successful. What will make the individual most successful—in-office, hybrid or remote work? It’s not only about asking them what they want. Focus on their role as it affects their team, group and company. - Barry Michael George, Impact Global Coaching and Leadership LLC
17. Set An Example By Showing Vulnerability
Leaders need to set an example of how to maintain a focus on health and wellness as part of a solid work environment. This means showing some vulnerability, demonstrating their need to take breaks, navigate stress, find time for physical activity and so on. Team walks and de-stressing sessions are great tools. The more we normalize health and wellness, the easier it is for everyone to be well-rounded. - Tami Chapek, WeInspireWe
18. Lead A 5-Minute ‘Brain Break’ Twice A Day
Leaders can support their team’s mental and physical well-being by leading a five-minute “brain break,” twice a day. Brain breaks reduce stress, increase productivity, restore motivation and refresh and increase enjoyment, while building social skills. Taking just ten minutes total, per day, to play a quick game or get outside for some fresh air can help teams reset as they return to the office. - Cheri Rainey, Rainey Leadership Learning
19. Model Prioritizing Time For Well-Being
Modeling taking regular breaks, prioritizing time for well-being and sharing their own well-being practices are highly effective strategies leaders can use to cultivate an organizational culture where teams are empowered to prioritize their own health and wellness. While health and wellness benefits and programs are helpful, leaders should model prioritizing well-being to encourage their teams. - Brandy Simula, Brandy L. Simula Coaching and Consulting
