When, how and why to encourage self-care in the workplace
As a business owner, there is a lot that you need to think about, but your utmost priority should always be your employees – and encouraging self-care could be integral to both them and your business.
When you think of self-care, you might envision a bubble bath or a mini break away from everything. However, self-care is ever-changing, and it’s becoming more important to dedicate moments throughout the workday to self-care. This article is going to look at when you should encourage self-care in the workplace, how, and why.
When to encourage self-care in the workplace?
It’s always important to take care of yourself and encourage your employees to do the same. Self-care is essential for the mental and physical well-being of your employees – and the better their well-being is, the more productive they’ll be in the workplace. There are times when your employees need to prioritise their well-being more than usual, like when an important audit crops up or when there are a lot of deadlines very close together.
These are the times when employees are most likely to abandon their self-care practices, but these are also the times when they are most needed.
Things like eating healthily, spending enough time with family and friends, and keeping a regular sleep routine are all important self-care contributors to ensuring healthy and happy employees.
How to encourage self-care in the workplace?
Wellbeing training
Group well-being training can help your employees to learn how to look after their health and well-being. This could focus on things like how to manage stress and build healthy habits.
Lead by example
Prioritising your own self-care will naturally motivate and encourage your employees to do the same. By creating a culture that shows the value of physical and mental well-being, you will actively invite others to take better care of themselves.
Celebrate and reward
An integral part of workplace culture is celebrating the progress of your employees. Take the time to reflect on what your employees have achieved and celebrate their achievements with them to help boost the morale of the entire team. There are many ways to reward employees and give them the recognition they deserve. Something like group income protection insurance shows your employees that you value them as more than just employees.
Why encourage self-care in the workplace?
According to the World Health Organisation, self-care is anything that people do “to establish and maintain health and prevent and deal with illness.”
Stress is one of the leading causes of poor mental health and resignation. By starting to educate employees on mindfulness and how to effectively manage their stress, you will prevent them from feeling overwhelmed and assist them in managing their own emotions.
Similarly, employee burnout is an increasing problem in today’s workplace. Work-life balance should be a priority. You need to adopt policies that help employees to be able to manage their home and work lives respectively. As mentioned above, flexitime is an effective way of doing this.
Providing your employees with the means to take care of themselves ensures a greater level of engagement and happiness throughout the workplace.
