By Kailynn Bowling, co-founder of ChicExecs PR & Retail Strategy Firm.
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Trends like the Great Resignation and quiet quitting revealed a hard truth for employers: Workers are fed up. Old-fashioned, top-down management styles just don’t work. Demanding and overly aggressive leadership is a turn-off that can lose employees and slow down production.
Employees need leaders who care about their well-being, and that means every good manager needs to incorporate employee wellness into their job. It’s not only the right thing to do, but employee wellness comes with plenty of benefits to your business, like:
• Lower absenteeism
• Improved morale
• Increased productivity
This is about more than offering PTO or health insurance. You care about wellness, but how do you do wellness as a manager? Here’s how you can make employee wellness a part of everything you do as a leader.
1. Revamp your space.
What’s it like to work in your office? The traditional office setup is loud, distracting and uncomfortable, so consider changing the physical space to encourage wellness. That might mean making changes like:
• Ditching the open-office plan
• Adding private phone booths for employee calls
• Adding sit-to-stand desks
• Offering ergonomic chairs
• Installing white noise machines
• Providing alternative seating like cushions, couches or stability balls
As a leader, you should encourage employees to take advantage of your ergonomics. In my experience, employees frequently call out of work to deal with back pain, and these solutions can definitely cut down on employee discomfort—as long as they use them.
2. Encourage authenticity.
Your employees should feel free to be themselves at work. Everyone still needs to behave in a professional way, of course, but they shouldn’t feel like they have to invent a new personality for work. That might mean you may need to invest in public allyship so LGBTQ+ employees know they can be themselves at work, for example.
3. Create a feedback culture.
A feedback culture is a culture where criticism isn’t a four-letter word. While leadership feedback is important in any business, a feedback culture encourages a two-way loop. That’s right: You can encourage employee wellness when you create a workplace where your team is comfortable sharing ideas.
Managers need to prove they can take feedback graciously. If you get angry or defensive when your team pushes back, you’re telling them that you don’t care about their opinion. That does a number on morale, so be willing to accept other people’s ideas. You’ll not only show employees that you value their contributions, but you’ll probably get better work from your team as a result, too.
4. Delegate to encourage autonomy.
Autonomy is an important element of employee wellness. But if you’re micromanaging your team, you’re disempowering them and bringing down the room. Managers need to delegate effectively, which means trusting employees to do their jobs.
If an employee fails, help them learn from the mistake instead of chastising them. If they need support, give them access to training or change their workflow. When employees know you’re there to support them, they’re much more likely to do their best without performance anxiety.
5. Be flexible.
Some business models don’t allow for a lot of flexibility, but as a general rule, it’s best to be as flexible with your employees as possible. That means offering remote work to employees who want it or allowing employees to work non-traditional hours. If you can get away with it, consider switching to a four-day workweek.
6. Celebrate employees.
Recognition boosts employee morale and performance, but it’s up to managers to recognize employees effectively. Show that you care about your employees’ well-being by recognizing them for their contributions.
That might mean:
• Doing a public shout-out at your next department meeting.
• Offering employee of the month awards.
• Acknowledging work and life milestones.
For maximum impact, deliver recognition in a way that your employees would most appreciate. If you don’t know how to celebrate your employees, just ask them! You might see that employees prefer written praise over gifts, or vice versa.
7. Set firm work-life boundaries.
Your employees are human, and that means they need a break from work to recharge. You can’t claim to care about employee wellness if you ask employees to work 12-hour days, nights and weekends, so set firm work hours.
As a manager, you have to set the norms for this. Don’t send emails after working hours. Don’t Slack the entire team at midnight. And certainly don’t dial into meetings while you’re on vacation.
Like it or not, employees take their cues from you, so set a firm line between work and life to encourage your employees to disconnect.
8. Coach your management team.
Few people are born natural leaders. Like anything, leadership is a skill you have to cultivate. If you really do take employee wellness seriously, that means it’s time to train all of your managers on employee wellness. With ongoing coaching, your managers can learn how to create a healthy culture that puts employees first.
As managers, it is our job to set the standard for our employees. Show your employees you value not only their work but also their well-being in 2023.
