Creating a robust wellness program that focuses on all aspects of wellbeing can have a positive impact on an organization's corporate image, energy consumption, and productivity. The World Health Organization defines well-being not only as the absence of any disease or health problems, but also as the complete state of physical, mental, and social well-being. The eight dimensions of wellness include: emotional, physical, intellectual, financial, spiritual, occupational, social, and environmental. Minna B. Consulting, a mental health consulting practice, argues that each dimension of well-being serves as a useful benchmark for setting effective boundaries, which in turn can protect our mental health for challenging years like 2020. Taking action to grow and understand each dimension can set employees on the path to overall well-being and happiness.

Emotional Wellness to Decrease Stress

Emotional well-being is the ability to manage stress, healthily express emotions, respect the feelings of others, and have a positive attitude towards life. People with healthy emotional health feel secure, in control of their feelings, and can cope with the obstacles that life and work entail. Employees will recover from failures faster, discover meaning in mistakes, and find more solutions by not obsessing over negative things. Practices to boost emotional wellness include:

• Reducing exposure to stressful situations
• Practicing gratitude and positive self-talk
• Identifying and acknowledging emotional triggers
• Setting clear and healthy personal boundaries
• Bringing awareness to the emotions you are experiencing

Physical Wellness to Boost Health

Physical well-being is about developing habits. These include movement, nutrition, health, and self-care practices that make your body feel good and perform well. Physical well-being also includes developing body awareness and personal health management. A healthy body dimension includes pursuing optimal cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, strength, and maintaining regular physical activity. Employers should implement corporate wellness programs that enable employees to develop healthy habits and lead a healthy lifestyle. You can encourage your employees to be physically fit by offering fitness, yoga, and nutrition classes or free gym memberships.

Social Wellness to Increase Happiness

Both physical and mental health can be positively influenced through the achievement of social well-being. The social dimension of well-being is our ability to create and maintain positive relationships, how we communicate our needs and feelings, have support networks, and contribute to our community and environment. Social well-being creates a sense of belonging and can also make people happier and physically healthier. There is still a significant stigma around talking about mental or emotional well-being at work, so it's important to create a work environment where people feel safe and comfortable sharing their feelings. Some tips to increase social wellness include:

• Make at least one new social connection every day
• Seek advice from peers and support groups
• Join a book club or new communities
• Do random acts of kindness for others and allow others to do good deeds for you
• Maintain personal boundaries by cutting off certain social connections
  

Intellectual Wellness to Keep Learning

When you promote intellectual health, you are engaging in activities that promote intellectual development. Intellectual happiness is when you recognize that your unique talents are creative and find ways to use your knowledge and skills. According to Workplace Wellness, intellectual wellness enhances the physical structure of our brains by learning new things consistently. People who focus on intellectual health often find that they have better concentration, memory, and critical thinking skills. 

Financial Wellness to Manage Responsibilities

Financial well-being is about living with a sense of confidence that your needs can be met and building a solid foundation that will allow you to plan for comfort (and even pleasure) in your future. The pursuit of financial well-being can affect not only your ability to provide for a family, but your emotional well-being can be affected by good or bad financial health. Here are some ways to improve financial wellness in the workplace:

• Write financial goals and objectives
• Install phone applications to keep track of expenses
• Treat employees with gift cards!

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Environmental Wellness for Productiveness

The dimension of environmental well-being also includes self-awareness of the impact of personal interactions with the environment and actions to protect oneself from environmental pollutants by creating a healthy environment that supports overall well-being. An environment with poor air quality and low lighting can make employees feel irritated and sleepy. A workplace that embodies environmental wellness looks like:

• Proper risk management and assessments
• Implement the four R’s (reduce, re-use, re-think, recycle)
• Better air quality and natural lighting
• Higher understanding of environmental awareness
  

Occupational Wellness to Find Opportunities

Occupational well-being includes balancing work needs with personal time, building relationships with colleagues, exploring different career options, and participating in continuing education opportunities. Examples of ways to improve occupational well-being include activities such as employee evaluation meetings, community service projects outside the office, and new learning and enrichment opportunities such as seminars.

Spiritual Wellness to Increase Employee Morale

If you’re looking to increase employee morale, spiritual wellness might be what you need to focus on next. It gives us purpose and makes us feel connected to something greater than ourselves. Employees want to feel like they are making an impact on the company and the people around them. Healthy spiritual wellness in the workplace looks like:

• Confident decision making and more decisiveness
• Comfortable with change
• Strong values
• Resilient in adversity
• Remaining calm under pressure

Spirituality can take the form of engaging in activities that reinforce your values ​and support others as a trusted team member. One way to practice spiritual wellness is through mindfulness, by enrolling employees in classes or taking time to meditate during a company-wide meeting.

Enjoying what you do and doing what you enjoy can affect all areas of well-being. By keeping the eight foundations of well-being in mind, you can help create a healthy work-life balance for your employees as well as maintain a happier mood at work, which increases productivity and reduces business costs. Subscribe to keep learning about new ways you can help your employees stay motivated and inspired, contact us for all your gift card needs!

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