I often get the question “What REALLY is workplace well-being?”

Many people associate wellness at work with feel-good practices like a meditation session on Zoom or fruit in the cafeteria. The traditional approach has been to offer benefits and programs that are a temporary band aid.

It’s so much more than that!

While these things are helpful and often appreciated by employees, they don’t get to the root of an organization’s strategy to truly support employee well-being.

A solid workplace well-being strategy must consider the entire work environment: the organization’s values, how employees are evaluated, where, when and how people work, and how people manage, communicate, and interact together, just to name a few.

It’s the most multi-faceted approach I’ve found as an HR professional to employ best practices that contribute to the best possible conditions in the workplace.

Well-being needs to be designed into the workplace through deliberate and intentional systematic analysis, planning, programming and actions. First and foremost, workplace well-being needs to be seen as the responsibility of the entire organization and not just HR who have traditionally been viewed as the organization’s caretakers.

Management teams can no longer give lip service to how people are their greatest asset, only to demonstrate damaging and often toxic behaviors that completely contradict this.  The stakes are too high.