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Communicating wellness through meaningful engagement
EKRAM KABIR
Many companies are quite serious about communicating wellness-related information to co-workers. They have realised that a healthy workforce is crucial for sustainable productivity and want to become humane institutions.
Most of these companies send emails, text messages, and video content to co-workers to remind them about the importance of health and wellness, inspiring them to exercise, jog, walk, eat nutritious food, give up harmful habits, etc.
That is excellent work. However, how many co-workers become conscious of caring for their health with that type of communication remains unanswered. No one knows how these communication media have helped them understand the importance of healthcare.
For the co-workers, emails regarding stress management, healthy eating, and physical activity don’t mean anything. They are more interested in their key performance indicator (KPI)-related emails. Text messages get lost in an avalanche of other messages. They don’t have time to watch video messages that sound like sermons and they feel sleepy during awareness workshops.
Many companies have realised that merely calling on co-workers to remain healthy does not work; instead, creating opportunities for taking care of their health by investing in various facilities is the best form of communication. Therefore, many companies have introduced onsite yoga classes, gym facilities, indoor and outdoor games, and outdoor team-building activities.
Onsite health screening has also made its way into our business arena.
We see a remarkable development in the wellness frontier in our corporate horizon. But do the companies have the courage to introduce a weekly vegan day in the office cafeteria? I doubt that. A meatless day may be possible, but a complete vegan day? Nay.
Many have started thinking about the mental wellness of their co-workers. Yes, investing in counselling facilities for co-workers has done wonders for some companies.
A few have introduced mental health days where co-workers are encouraged to take time off to focus on their mental well-being. Acknowledging the importance of mental health is like acknowledging someone’s human entity, which, in turn, will make him or her more productive in the workplace.
Wellness communication needs to be participatory and engaging. We could host wellness challenges that motivate colleagues to engage in healthy behaviours, such as walking challenges or healthy eating goals, sleep contests, and leveraging the power of friendly competition.
I heard Philips in the Netherlands encourages its co-workers to bike to work by providing facilities such as bike storage and showers. This not only promotes physical fitness but also contributes to environmental sustainability.
Some companies in more prosperous economies offer workshops on financial wellness, addressing the link between economic stress and overall well-being and providing co-workers with knowledge and tools to manage their financial health.
In the business sector of Bangladesh, people suffer from financial pressures more than any other form of unwellness. Personal finance-related counselling may significantly reduce their stress and redesign their spending habits.
Engagements are more impactful in instilling a sense of wellness among co-workers. No matter how personalised, relevant, clear, and simple our messages are or how frequent and well-written they are, no one has the time and interest to receive them unless we create wellness opportunities.
Or, on a different plan, companies could earmark a wellness KPI for each co-worker – 10 points for keeping herself or himself healthy.
The author is a communications professional