Neela Pirwitz, is a Jay Shetty certified burnout-prevention and well-being coach. She studied psychology and is now working for an international organization. Based in the Netherlands and coaching globally, she is working with professionals who want to become more efficient in how they work, create a better work-life balance, or restructure their routines and habits to prevent burnout.
A healthy company culture must be actively built. Different initiatives, like open communication or focusing on employee health, can help the company to operate more efficiently and save money on sick pay or rehiring. At the same time, employees will be healthier, have more motivation and think more innovatively.
There are many actions we as individuals can take to remain healthy. We can focus on nutrition for physical health or mindfulness and stress reduction for our mental health. Nevertheless, the environment we are in is an essential part of our well-being. This is especially so if we spend as much time in an environment as we do at the workplace. While we can contribute to creating a healthy work environment, by setting a good example or being empathetic towards our co-workers, it is important to recognise the structural aspects which make a workplace healthy or unhealthy, too. If the structural norms of a workplace are inherently unhealthy, personal contributions can’t always add enough to keep employees healthy, engaged, and even at the company. This can lead to staffing problems, high costs for the company, and health issues for employees. Needless to say, this is not a desirable state. Fortunately, there are actions companies can take to create a healthy company culture, contributing to employees having a healthy work-life balance and therefore increasing happiness at work while reducing sickness and burnout.
Before anything else, a company has to establish core values that everyone knows about and (including management) sticks to. Company values allow employees to understand what they can expect in the workplace, and what they are expected to focus on. For these to be most effective, employees need to know that company values and rules apply to everyone in the same way, no matter the position they are in. Additionally, companies may make several efforts to actively foster a healthy working environment.
Open communication
Few things are as annoying as receiving conflicting information from several people or change happening without anyone informing you in advance. It can leave employees startled, may reduce their motivation and lead to a general sense of confusion. Hence, it is important to communicate changes before they are introduced, with enough time for employees to ask questions, and raise concerns. To add to the employee’s feeling of safety, it is useful to provide an anonymous way of voicing concerns. This will allow employees to criticise openly, without fearing consequences like being reprimanded by management. The same is true for the difficulties the company is facing. Employees should be informed, and not feel like information is being kept from them. This is the case, even if management is unsure how a situation will develop. It is important to keep employees in the loop, to keep their trust and loyalty toward the company.
Recognition of accomplishments and efforts
Recognising employees for their efforts and accomplishments can enhance motivation and encourage them to keep putting in effort. It might even leave them wanting to perform better the next time or to learn new skills. There are several ways of showing appreciation for employees’ efforts, like managers praising them directly, giving the team member a shout-out at the next team meeting or celebrating achievements at the next company event.
Focussing on employee development
People naturally want to learn and develop. Learning new skills, hearing about others’ experiences or getting insight into different areas than their usual field can enhance employee motivation and engagement. Growth is important to many employees. Most want to grow not stagnate. It is wise for a company to support these wishes, and offer possibilities of doing this, as employees might otherwise look for a company that will support their professional growth and offers more perspective.
Focussing on health and work-life balance
Mental health is an important, yet sensitive topic. Therefore, it is important to actively address mental health and to do so in the right way. Firstly, employees need to feel like if they share about their mental health, it matters. This can mean that if an employee feels like they cannot handle the current workload, e.g. due to problems at home, active steps are taken to temporarily reduce the employee’s workload. Additionally, it can be helpful to assign a dedicated person, who is informed on mental health, whom employees can come to with their concerns. This could for example be an HR professional. Not every employee will feel comfortable discussing private matters with their managers, but a neutral, educated person can encourage them to talk about their mental health anyway. This person can also help make mental health an ongoing topic within the company. Normalising it as something to discuss will make sharing easier and show employees that the company is invested in the topic long-term. Lastly, offering out-of-house support in the form of coaching, or therapy, can be helpful, where necessary. While this might seem like a large investment, it can contribute to the health and retention of employees in a large way, ensuring that the company keeps their talent. Consequently, sick pay, rehiring and retraining costs will be reduced.
Encouraging mistakes
Additionally, to the possibility for professional development mentioned above, employees need to feel that it is safe to make mistakes. This does not mean that avoidable mistakes and sloppiness should be condoned. Rather, employees should get the room to solve problems in a new way, try to make processes more efficient or come up with innovative ideas. Encouraging this sort of creativity and room for growth will keep employees motivated and engaged.
Promoting diversity, equity and inclusion
Another important factor in fostering a healthy company culture is focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion of all employees. Rather than hiring individuals of a certain minority group to fill a quota, diversity, equity and inclusion should be an active focus of the company. Part of this effort is to make every employee feel equal and included in the company. To achieve this, the same rules need to apply and be enforced, to everyone. For example, if one employee is encouraged to share their concerns openly, every other employee has to be encouraged to do the same. Moreover, political correctness should be expected of all employees and managers, and consequences should follow in case of discriminating language or behaviour.
Additionally, active efforts should be taken to help everyone feel included. For example, when celebrating holidays, holidays of all religions and ethnicities should be celebrated equally.
Acknowledge that there are different holidays, and thematize them equally. These efforts are a good starting point to help all employees feel safe at work – which can ultimately contribute to their health, happiness and remaining with the company.
As you can see, there are many actions companies can take to create a healthy working environment for their employees. This is beneficial to both the companies and the employees alike. Companies can retain employees longer, which can lead to more success through higher efficiency, save money on rehiring and retraining and even enhance innovation. At the same time, employees can feel happier at work and are more likely to remain healthy. A workplace encouraging health and work-life balance is a desirable base for employees to keep doing their best while experiencing a sense of satisfaction at work. A win-win for everyone involved.
Neela Pirwitz, Performance and Well-Being Coach
Neela Pirwitz, is a Jay Shetty certified burnout-prevention and well-being coach. She studied psychology and is now working for an international organization. Based in the Netherlands and coaching globally, she is working with professionals who want to become more efficient in how they work, create a better work-life balance, or restructure their routines and habits to prevent burnout. Neela’s mission is to help her clients to fit their work into their life, rather than life into their work.
