While we know that our workplace wellness programs drive high engagement, something that can tip the scales to even higher levels is focusing on your managers. Specifically, looking at different manager strategies for employee engagement and wellness.
You might be surprised to learn that according to research from Gallup, managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement. 70%! That might just be the single largest influence on employee engagement.
Driving engagement is a priority for the majority of organizations, with seven in ten (71%) company executives believing employee engagement is crucial to business success. We know that when organizations increase the number of engaged employees, they improve a host of organizational outcomes, including profit, retention rates and customer service. In fact, highly engaged employees result in a 23% increase in profitability.
You can imagine how wellness drives employee engagement. Just think about a day or a period of time that you were not feeling well yourself. Perhaps you were overly stressed, low energy, constantly getting sick, or not sleeping well. You likely did not do your best work during that period of time, or if you did it came at the expense of your family or personal life. When an employee feels good, they are more likely to engage with and enjoy their work. The numbers back this up. Hub International reports that employee morale is the metric that improves the most (54%) from a wellness program. Further, 91% of employees feel more inclined to do their best work when management prioritizes employee well-being.
We’ve seen this firsthand from our program feedback. For example, 93% of survey respondents felt that their company cared about their health and wellbeing after our wellness challenge. 91% felt more connected to their colleagues and 89% felt the challenge made work more fun – three metrics that help drive engagement. Moreover, 96% were able to better manage their stress too. Click here for a case study on how we increased employee engagement through wellness programs.
With that in mind, here’s how you can support your managers so they can influence and promote workplace wellness and engagement.
This sounds obvious, but many managers aren’t receiving some of the basic training around wellbeing. Much like many companies have done with DEI training, we must train managers on what well-being looks like so that they can pass it on to their teams.
From a mental well-being perspective, one way to educate is with specific mental health awareness training for your managers. We host a Mental Health Training for Managers lunch and learn (or webinar) for our clients and by the end of this session, the managers can:
Another manager strategy for employee engagement and wellness is a simple one. At the most basic nutrition level, you can discuss the importance of ordering energizing food for lunch meetings. When ordering starch-heavy meals, you can expect your teams to feel like they need to take a nap afterward. Pizza, some sandwiches without enough protein, pasta, etc lead to the afternoon slump. Rather, focus on vegetables (salads) and proteins like grilled chicken, salmon or tofu. Alternatively, protein-rich wraps can also work. Swap out the sweetened drinks like juice and pop or soda for water and sparkling water.
From more of a lifestyle perspective, normalize not needing to be online outside of work hours and not requiring a response to emails that may be sent outside of work hours. It can be challenging for a direct report to disconnect if their manager is bombarding them with emails at 9pm at night. While it’s the manager’s choice to send emails late at night, a simple discussion that there is no need to reply or action anything until the next day is helpful.
Encourage short breaks throughout the day. The term monkey-see, monkey-do is a great way to think about this. If a manager never leaves his or her desk all day, a direct report may feel uncomfortable taking a break, but working more does not equal better work. In fact, science shows taking breaks encourages better focus and productivity. In one survey, North American workers who took a lunch break every day scored higher on a wide range of engagement metrics, including job satisfaction and likelihood to continue working at the same company. Interestingly, in our wellness challenge, when we ask participants what made the largest difference to their health, one of the most common responses was the 15-minute daily walk break during the day.
For more ideas on how to be healthier at work, click here.
Excitement is contagious. We recently ran a wellness challenge with a consumer packaged goods client that had 100% participation throughout the full 4 weeks. This is extremely high, and one of the factors involved was that two director-level employees were very excited and gung-ho about the program. Their excitement was contagious and garnered higher than typical excitement and participation as it trickled down to their teams. Excitement is contagious. Even something as simple as designating certain senior and middle managers to go around the office and chat with employees and answer questions about joining the program can lead to a higher participation rate.
Last, but certainly not least, one of the initiatives we are facilitating with a global sportswear manufacturer is an informal employee recognition program. This is not the same as a performance review; rather, we are encouraging employees to begin one meeting a week by recognizing another team member’s (in the meeting) contribution. Researchers behind The Grateful Workplace found that practicing gratitude at an organizational level can help build rapport and strengthen relationships within teams and organizations, increase confidence and trust, boost mood, happiness, and well-being and improve motivation and performance – all factors in engagement and team performance.
If you’d like to learn more about how we can support your managers and teams with their health as part of your employee engagement efforts, click here to get in touch.
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