Successful Corporate Wellbeing Strategies

The Three Non-negotiables

Gone are the days when long hours, fatigued brains, and zapped out employees are the signs of a dedicated team of employees. Truly thriving corporations are confirming through collected data that employees who report high levels of wellbeing perform better. An organization’s culture, innovation, staff retention, revenue, and profits are all knock-on effects of employing realistic corporate wellness strategies.

Michele Chevalley Hedge, nutritionist, author, and corporate wellbeing strategist recently share her insights from the 28 corporate wellness strategies she has implemented in the past 36 months.

1. Leader Led

It is leaders who are driving this change.  Not long ago it was HR teams or a few wellness champions asking for yoga or meditation classes.  But now it is the CEO and MD who advocate corporate wellbeing and ‘walk the talk’, who are championing and modeling this wave of wellness.

Gone are the days of just yoga and meditation. There is mindfulness, healthy eating, nutrition for mental health, HIIT training, and much more on offer to reduce stress and improve wellbeing.  Leaders of organisations and teams take their nutrition, sleep and exercise seriously because they know both at home and at work, it is what creates their vitality and ability to connect.

"They are not seeking perfection but understand the value of consistency”, says Chevalley Hedge.

2. Dig-ical Health Solutions.

Wellbeing strategies in corporations across Australia and America include face-to-face training and keynotes on mediation to nutrition. Michele Chevalley Hedge says, “Where we have seen the greatest improvement in energy, retention, culture, productivity and strategic thinking is when a company engages in a “dig-ical’ solution.  This is where you combine the human element of physical courses and classes with digital education”.

Too many companies are spending money on expensive apps and digital platforms and not getting the expected employee satisfaction. But, add a human into the mix to discuss wellbeing in an evidence-based and engaging fashion and BOOM! You get uptake, interest and employees embracing the offering. Nothing will take the place of the human voice touching the heart and soul of another human and this is what makes health presenters so valued.  Then, if you add an easy to follow digital program which can be followed and shared at home, you create what I call ’sticky wellness’.  These health tips ‘stick’ not only in the office but also in your home.

3. Flexible, Multidimensional and Option-based.

Flexible times and classes are imperative. Corporations need options that understand that everyone has their own baseline of wellness and busy lives. This is where it is important that your corporate wellness provider collects feedback, analyses the data and decides what needs to be added, deleted or restructured to fit the needs of your organisation.

For example, after four months with one property group, the collected data strongly showed there was more desire for cooking and nutrition classes and less for meditation. But unless we analysed that data, we would not have been able to move swiftly and create the change this organisation was looking for.