LC Extension

A healthy workplace is key to employee well-being, but it doesn’t happen automatically. Creating a healthy work environment takes focused effort from a leadership team invested in supporting their staff.

How significant is employee well-being? It’s massive. Supporting employees is a big driver of employee engagement and productivity. Globally, turnover and lost productivity is costing organizations $322 billion, according to Gallup. [DS1]

Clearly, taking care of your employees makes good business sense. Employee well-being is critical to creating an engaged and thriving workforce, and to avoid the financial impacts of employee burnout.

What is employee well-being?

Employees need to feel safe, welcomed and supported in order to do their best work for your company. Leaders need to take care of the physical, emotional and mental health of the individuals on their teams to help promote this outcome.

Supporting employee well-being means nurturing positive work environments and implementing training programs to help workers feel engaged in their work. It can include the development of safe workplaces, equitable compensation policies, and professional development programs like Lethbridge College’s Building Emotional Intelligence course, which is designed to teach emotional intelligence skills to working professionals.

These types of programs can help transform your perspective, your organization, and can help remove obstacles so employees can realize their full potential.

Removing barriers can include tackling toxic behaviour at work, which is over 30 times more impactful than simply providing access to mental health resources, according to McKinsey.

How the well-being of your workers impacts your business

Workplace wellness doesn’t just benefit employees or make your organization a better place to work, although it can do both. It can also drive positive business impacts that strengthen your business.

Programs that support employee well-being can boost discretionary effort from your staff by 21 per cent, bumping up their productivity, according to Gartner.

Companies that have implemented workplace wellness programs show a 66 per cent increase in productivity, a 63 per cent increase in financial stability and growth, and a 50 per cent decrease in employee absenteeism.

Supporting the mental health and well-being of your teams can create long-term stability for your company, and help you become an employer of choice for new talent.

How leaders can support mental health and well-being at work

Trends appear to be shifting toward more supportive work environments, and some studies show more than two-thirds of senior leaders rank employee well-being and mental health as top priorities in their organizations. It’s clearly time to make employee well-being a priority in your organization as well, and you can start by learning howemotional intelligence is a key leadership competency.

Here are some ways leaders can actively support employee well-being:

• Encourage communication and feedback from employees
• Provide opportunities for learning and skill development
• Offer recognition and reinforcement for accomplishments
• Implement policies that support a healthy balance between work and home
• Provide robust mental health and employee wellness programs
• Examine company norms and policies regarding diversity and inclusion
• Be proactive about tackling toxic behaviour within any department
• Enrol yourself and your team in an Emotional Intelligence course

Leaders set the tone, identify priorities and allocate resources, so involvement from the top level is imperative to the success of any workplace wellness efforts. When leaders support employee well-being, everyone benefits.

See how LC Extension can help you prioritize employee well-being and ensure your leadership team actively supports these efforts across the company. Join the Building Emotional Intelligence course at Lethbridge College and learn how to manage your emotional responses so you can stress less, reduce frustration, handle awkward social moments, help build up your team at work and unlock the key to more fulfilling and successful experiences.