Employee wellness programs are increasingly recognized for their positive impact on employee satisfaction and your company’s bottom line. When a workplace wellness program is tailored to your team’s unique needs, it can improve retention, reduce healthcare costs and absenteeism, and increase productivity and performance.
As office culture and employee expectations continue to evolve and new health and wellness technologies come into the market, it can be daunting to keep up with a program that delivers. We’ve pulled together four emerging workplace wellness trends for 2019 that will help you stay ahead of the curve.
Offer holistic workplace wellness
Wellness programs are continuing to expand beyond physical health to consider the whole person and include other important aspects of overall employee wellbeing.
Stress reduction, emotional health, eating and sleeping habits and even good posture will all become important elements of a holistic corporate wellness program next year.
There is also increasing awareness about mental health in the workplace. In 2019, you can expect to see more companies investing in mental health resources and education to ensure their teams are well supported.
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Check out the Guide: How to Build a Performance-Driven Culture
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Reduce stress with mindfulness exercises
We live in a non-stop world and there is never a minute to waste. Employees are sending emails, approving drafts, and scanning Twitter in the two minutes it takes to ride the elevator up to the office. And that’s before the day even begins. To help employees reduce office stress, companies are including mindfulness exercises in their workplace wellness programs.
Help your employees press pause and take a breath by bringing mindfulness into your workplace wellness next year. Consider adding simple things like nudges to encourage mid-afternoon stretching. Or bigger things, like mediation apps or lunch hour yoga.
Embrace data analytics
Data analytics continues to be the real game changer for corporate health and wellness. By moving health and wellness programs onto digital platforms, companies can better understand and manage employee wellbeing.
A digital platform enables a bigger pool of health data and more effective ways of leveraging it. For example, Sprout at Work’s employee wellness platform encourages employees to share their photos, results and achievements. More employee engagement means more raw data to help inform your wellness strategy and make sure that it’s having an impact.
Wearable integration will continue to be important in 2019. You can enhance your data collection and analytics, improve employee engagement and gain a better overall picture of corporate health. Make sure your employee wellness platform includes wearable integration such as Fitbit or Apple Health integration.
Use incentives to target health challenges
In 2019, you can expect to see more companies using incentives, rewards and nudges to encourage healthy habits and improve participation.
A good incentive management system can have a big impact on improving the value of your employee wellness strategy. Especially when it’s paired with data analytics. Employers can identify key health challenges, set goals for improvement and create custom incentives that will help employees make healthy choices to improve overall office health.
Sprout’s customizable incentive management system includes nudges, goal-setting and rewards that build community and promote lasting habits that lead to healthier, more satisfied employees.
