Corporate Wellness Week runs from 3–7 July, and aims to highlight the importance of a healthy and productive working environment. This applies to business leaders and owners as much as it does to employees.
ActionCOACH SA country partner, Harry Welby-Cooke, cautions that an unhealthy work environment (and work/life balance) can impact both your business sustainability as well as your health. “Stress due to an unhealthy work environment (or workload) affects both your ability to grow your business as well as your physical health. Leaders and business owners typically put themselves last and the trick to prevent excessive stress from happening is to create and maintain a healthy work environment for both you and your team.”
Welby-Cooke recommends the following to foster a healthy work environment:
- Building a growth mindset.
This character trait works with the belief that personal qualities and abilities can be developed through effort, review and learning. Business leaders with a growth mindset are more likely to persevere through challenges and take calculated risks in pursuit of their goals. This automatically translates into investing in your own growth. Further, it ensures daily stimulation and engagement, and keeps the leadership energy high. Which translates into productive and motivated teams.
- Building grit.
This is a combination of passion and perseverance. It enables a business leader to maintain focus and motivation towards long-term goals despite obstacles and setbacks. Success is not always a specific outcome but rather a process or progress of building blocks specked with intermittent failures. The positivity that this grows cannot be underestimated and it’s infectious. It spreads to the rest of the teams.
- Practicing gratitude.
Practicing gratitude leads to a more positive outlook, which can help build stronger relationships with and between employees and partners. Too much focus and emphasis are placed on what’s lacking, yet to be achieved or a future outcome. Gratitude grounds one in the present and ensures an appreciation both for the journey to date (the past) as well as the current day. Whilst there may even be millions of people ahead of where you want to be; there are literally billions that aspire to be exactly where you are. Perspective and appreciation are critical.
- Inserting ‘Giving back’ or corporate social responsibility into the business.
This creates a sense of purpose for the business. No one company can survive outside of a strong network or eco-system. Paying forward and making a real difference in the marketplace has become a strong currency in business and in personal terms, it adds to a sense of fulfillment. It also allows the business leader and the team to focus on contribution. This contribution in itself removes the focus from self and shifts to the greater good.
- Facing fear.
A proper dream/vision for your life will always stretch you or require you to operate outside of your comfort zone. This is where the fear factor kicks in. Every one of us have been given the ability to do greater things, to build a legacy beyond your comfort zone. It does take time, thought and discipline to develop a dream/vision for your life that is in line with your calling in life. Go for it. Both you and your team will benefit from the traction that results from a clear path forward. When chasing the dream/vision it automatically focuses one’s attention on the longer-term priority and aids in getting ‘your head out the gutter’ and the current stress factors.
- Generate restfulness or peace.
People are often drawn to business leaders that demonstrate calmness, in any situation. As a business leader or owner, you have a better chance of being able to operate in rest when you have taken good care of yourself, have confidence in your plans and are clear about where your business is going. The value to everyone working with you is self-explanatory. You can only give what you already have in reserve. Replenish those reserves regularly.
- Get physical.
One of the easiest things to do when working very hard, is to become sedentary without realising that you’re doing so! Making time for exercise is not a luxury, it’s an important part of keeping yourself healthy. Sitting is the new smoking! Getting those ‘happy’ chemicals going at least 3 times a week alleviates stress and increases clarity. It doesn’t even have to be long periods of exercise time. Walking 5km a day goes a long way towards building physical strength and resilience (which translates into mental strength and resilience). Just keep it consistent.
