How to Improve Corporate Culture

In order to improve corporate culture and get the most out of your employees, you should always be trying to better their overall health and wellness. But improving employees’ health and wellness isn’t just about encouraging them to eat healthier, go for walks, or do more yoga. It’s about making sure your workforce, as a whole, is healthy and happy.

So how do you do that?

While healthy eating and regular exercise is important, we believe there are two additional – and equally as essential – ways to improve corporate culture: by showing your employees care and compassion, and by introducing fun and recreation into the workplace.

1. Be a Caring and Compassionate Leader

Showing your employees that you’re a caring and compassionate leader helps to build a sturdy foundation for a strong and successful working relationship. It adds a human element to your “boss” title, and lets employees know that you’re approachable, relatable, and understanding of whatever it is they may need.

Research conducted by Dr. Fiona Beddoes-Jones, Managing Director of The Cognitive Fitness Consultancy, revealed that 70% of employees prefer a ‘collaborative and supportive’ working environment, and 26% of employees would like a manager who is ‘nurturing and kind’ or ‘unconditionally supportive.’

Dr. Beddoes-Jones’ summary of the results was as follows: “People want clarity from a logical and pragmatic manager, but they also want to feel that a manager and the organisation genuinely care about them – and that is often what is missing. As they say, people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”

Source: Medical News Today

2. Make the Workplace Fun!

Along with displaying your caring and compassionate side, it’s important to show your employees that you have a fun and exciting side as well. This will also help to add a relatable, human element to your relationship.

A joint study conducted by the research company Empirica, and design studio Hassell, discovered that an attractive and fun workplace design can make all the difference when it comes to employee productivity and worker retention. The results of the study found that 32% of Aussie workers named workplace culture as the single most important factor affecting the appeal of an employer. Workplace facilities rated highly as well. Together, culture and environment outweighed the influence of salary on the overall appeal of an employer, according to this survey.

So what exactly do we mean by ‘workplace design,’ ‘workplace culture,’ and ‘workplace facilities?’

Let’s take a look at a real-life example:

Peopleworks for Flight Centre Travel Group designed their new 15-story global headquarters in Brisbane to showcase their awesome workplace culture. The building includes massage and spray tanning rooms, a huge slide between floor levels, a rooftop bar for Friday night drinks, and more.

In the words of Carole Cooper, executive general manager of Peopleworks for Flight Centre Travel Group, “We want people to feel really good about themselves, excited to come to work every day, to have fun because we are a ‘work hard, play hard’ type company.”

Article: News.com.au

Do Workplace Wellness Programs really Work?

There isn’t a one-word answer to this question. Successful outcomes depend on your adoption of an effective program, and that’s where we come in. We believe that with enough effort from team members, and with professionally-designed programs and workshops, wellness initiatives can deliver meaningful results.

In fact, studies have shown that top-of-the-line wellness programs have an average return rate of between 2:1 and 5:1 for every dollar spent on them.

According to a particular study sponsored by Humana and The Economist Intelligence Unit, employees who engage in wellness programs are 12% less likely to experience health issues caused by work-related stress. In addition, more than 70% of employees agreed that workplace wellness programs can have at least some impact on stress reduction. Lastly, about 90% of employees felt that participating in employee wellness programs improved their fitness levels, as well as their overall happiness and well-being.

How can HSG Help?

Last June, Holistic Services Group held a “Wellbeing Day” expo at St. Columba’s, an all-girls college near Melbourne. The overall objective of this program was to foster team cohesion among employees, and to provide staff with the proper tools to manage stress, increase energy, and improve lifestyle – all in a fun environment.

With approximately 120 staff members, the workshop focused on Laughter Yoga and a wide range of other services. Here is a brief description of each:

• Laughter Workshop – Our laughter workshop is a unique team building exercise that dissolves stress, tension, and pressure in minutes. Your employees will have loads of fun as they laugh themselves into a positive frame of mind and an improved sense of wellbeing. This program is all about laughing – no yoga movements involved!

• Tai Chi – An easy and relaxing activity we teach, that helps to improve both mental and physical health. Tai Chi helps to gently rejuvenate and re-energise employees, improving their overall wellness and productivity in the workplace.

• Mindfulness Meditation – A technique used to reduce stress, develop a calm mind, and heighten awareness. HSG’s mindfulness meditation sessions will teach you:
  • How to effectively manage stress with relaxation techniques
  • How to deal with negative thoughts and emotions
  • Yoga Nidra – one of the deepest states of relaxation, with powerful rejuvenation qualities
  • Optimal posture and light stretches
  • About attitude, positivity, awareness, and the connection between body and mind
  • How to deal with obstacles to meditation
  • About recent research findings
  • Different ways to relax
  • Simple, practical breathing exercises
  • How to integrate meditation and relaxation into your daily life.

• Resilience Workshop – HSG offers a range of resilience training workshops to teach your employees how to build resiliency at work. This will help them to cope with the various challenges of the modern workplace, such as learning new technology, organisational change, downsizing, mergers, increased workload, budget pressures, and deadlines.

• Work/Life Balance – We can customise an effective and cost-efficient work/life balance program to suit your organisation’s needs. Topics covered in the workshop may include:
  • Defining work/life balance
  • Core life areas – self, work, social, community, and core work/life principles
  • Identifying your strengths
  • How to manage time effectively
  • How to create healthy relationships for personal and career growth
  • How to manage your energy and maintain good health

• Healthy Lifestyle Session – HSG offers several different corporate health services, including Women’s Health Seminars and Workshops, Men’s Health Seminars and Workshops, and Individual Mini-Consultations and Health Assessments. Topics may include:
  • What is a healthy lifestyle?
  • Preventive screenings, eating well, and exercising
  • Impact of hormones on your health
  • Stress and managing family priorities
  • Healthy heart tips
  • Cancers affecting each gender
  • Emotional and mental wellbeing and importance of social networks
  • Weight loss myths and dieting
  • Sleep and fatigue
  • Health resources

• Yoga – Yoga at work provides a positive return on investment because it keeps your office staff both physically and mentally fit. Corporate yoga students often report improved concentration, greater clarity of mind, better decision-making, improved personal productivity, and deeper awareness of their health and wellbeing. At HSG, we tailor our yoga classes to suit your workplace demographic, and ensure that all staff participate at a level suitable for each individual.