Mental health is a crucial aspect of a thriving, engaged, and healthy workforce. In turn, workforce wellness is an integral part of any healthy––and productive––workplace. So what role can technology like team apps play in helping facilitate both happy, healthy employees and wellness in the workplace?
Consider Offering Subscriptions to Well-being Apps
In combination with a comprehensive wellness program, an app can be used to facilitate many of the components of your plan, from fitness challenges and polling your workforce about group wellness-oriented or other employee engagement activities to integrations with specific wellness apps.
When researching options to include in your workplace well-being action plan, there are many wellness apps such as Luminosity (neuroscience-back brain games to improve memory), Sleep Cycle (tracks your sleep patterns to ensure optimal amount of rest), and MindShift (a self-proclaimed “portable coach,” this app provides strategies for common anxiety provokers like social situations).
While somewhat controversial as to whether adding another technological tool to our lives actually relieves stress, here are the key benefits that matter in the context of emotional and mental health:
- The option to choose anonymity. Unfortunately, mental health challenges still carry a stigma, and even with an open workplace environment, not everyone in your workforce will feel comfortable confiding. A well-being app can be an alternative gateway and introduction to self-care on your workforce’s own terms.
- Access by your workforce on their own time and at their convenience. Stress manifests in different ways for all of us, and a person’s ideal environment for managing it is entirely subjective.
- Relatively affordable when compared to traditional therapy or counseling. In fact, some are free, such as Happier which acts as a mobile gratitude journal.
It’s important to note that a well-being app, and technology in general, is just one part of a well-rounded wellness program and strategy.
Use an App to Facilitate and Champion Your Wellness Program
While not all activities are appropriate to track and post publicly on your team app, team-building events are. For example, a group outing to a local park to pick up trash serves three purposes: helping to beautify your community, environmental stewardship, and an ecologically-philanthropic way to get active.
Beekeeper’s own Well-Beeing stream is one way to create communication streams dedicated to your wellness program in your team app. Doing so is an ideal method of sharing wellness tips, uploading guidelines, and posting best practices with your workforce.
Having nutritional snacks, drinks, and other food options available for your workforce is also an important part of creating a healthy workplace. Posting the week’s offerings on your team app and the nutritional value (for example, antioxidant benefits of blueberries, or heart-healthy benefits of oatmeal) further encourages your team to add them to their daily diet at work.
Using an app as part of your internal communication strategy to drive workforce engagement with a company wellness program can be an effective part of your overall wellness program strategy in the following ways:
- High visibility fosters goal accountability
- Two-way communication allows for both leadership and workforce to contribute posts on their own wellness journeys
- Gamification of wellness programs with incentives for posting, recognition of their participation, and polls to let employees weigh in on what wellness offerings they would most like to see available
No matter what route you take or what solutions you decide to implement, incorporating multiple strategies, such as a team app like Beekeeper, ensures your workforce feels supported by offering the ability to engage on their own terms. A app can be an integral part of a well-rounded workplace wellness program in today’s busy, digitally-focused world.
