How to Embrace Wellbeing for You and Your Team
When you are running a business, wellbeing can seem unimportant but there are many benefits to embracing it for yourself as an SME owner and for your team. Deborah Meaden, and NESCAFÉ experts, Guy Hughes and June Clark share their advice for prioritising wellbeing in the workplace so you and your team can work more effectively.
Looking After Yourself As a Business Owner
When talking about wellbeing in the workplace, the conversation is often focused on our employees and colleagues, with the wellbeing of leaders and business owners not often addressed. Simon Poole, CEO of Splash Projects, asked our experts how he could address his own health in our Workplace Wellbeing episode, and Deborah Meaden, Guy Hughes, and June Clark shared these key tips:
Take time off to maintain mental health
Regular breaks: As a business owner, it can be easy to work through breaks, after business hours, and on weekends especially during the beginning. Scheduling regular breaks and time off is important to prevent stress and burnout from derailing your work. Your employees may rely on you to be working at your best to support them, and that is not possible if you are burnt out and not looking after your own wellbeing.
Additional time off: Taking sick or mental health leave during times of extra stress is also important for an owner of a business. Recognising that you are struggling to do your job as well as usual is important to your health and wellbeing. Taking the time to rest your mind and body can help you feel more able to tackle the work when you return than trying to push yourself through illness or burnout, and you are likely to be more productive when feeling better.
Create a barrier between work and personal life when working from home
Starting work: If you can, have a set time to start work each day and get dressed for your work day just as you would when going into a physical workplace. This can help you quickly get into the mindset to focus on your tasks for the day.
Finishing work: At the end of your work day, it’s important to allow yourself some time to switch off and separate work and your personal life. Closing your laptop or turning off your computer, taking a screen break and moving into another room if you can, are all helpful ways to tell your brain that work is over. You may get changed into something more comfortable, go out for a walk, head to the gym, or take a bath or shower to help transition from “work time” into “personal time”.
Prioritise healthy habits to maintain wellbeing
Maintenance habits: Small habits you do daily for your physical and mental health are important to maintain a solid baseline of wellbeing. This might be as simple as enjoying a cup of tea or coffee outside (weather permitting) first thing in the morning, walking the dog each day, standing up and stretching throughout the day, or doing a crossword puzzle to keep your mind sharp. These should be small things that you enjoy doing, and prioritise daily to maintain your own sense of wellbeing.
Extra supporting habits: During times of stress, you may need to add in additional activities to boost your wellbeing. This might be keeping a journal to write down your worries or help prioritise your tasks for the day, taking a yoga or meditation class, or reaching out to a close friend or therapist to talk about what’s on your mind. These can be less frequent activities or habits that can give you a little extra wellbeing support whenever you feel you need it.
Understand your unique wellbeing needs
Make it personal: When thinking about wellbeing strategies or activities to implement for yourself, make sure you are choosing things that you enjoy or matter to you. While others may find doing a strength workout helpful for their wellbeing, you may prefer a leisurely cycle or walking the dog, for example. Focus less on what others swear by and more on what matters to you.
Trial and error: It may take some time to find wellbeing activities you enjoy or that help your own specific needs. Get curious about different types of wellbeing activities or actions from the physical, to mental and emotional. You may need to try a few different activities before you find something that works well to keep you feeling your best.
Engaging managers and leaders in wellbeing initiatives
It can be difficult as a business owner passionate about wellbeing to get other members of your team on board with the wellbeing initiatives you may want to introduce. Managers and leadership can have a large impact on the wellbeing of the rest of your employees, so getting them engaged with wellbeing strategies can be the first step to building a culture of wellbeing for your business. Business expert, Deborah Meaden, and our Nestlé wellbeing experts, Guy Hughes and June Clark, shared these three strategies to get managers and team leaders engaged in wellbeing at work:
Find their triggers
What are their barriers? If you have managers who are resisting your workplace wellbeing efforts, finding out what is holding them back. They may not understand why certain wellbeing initiatives are being implemented, or feel its too ‘fluffy’ and not concrete enough to spend time on. Having a conversation to understand their barriers should be a first step.
What would engage them? To help managers and team leaders get on board with wellbeing initiatives, ask them about what is important to them about their wellbeing. They may not have thought about everyday activities they do as being related to their health or mental wellness, but by chatting to them about what they do to relax, to get active, or to connect with others, you may be able to find triggers to get them involved.
Reward wellbeing behaviours you value
Praise and acknowledgement: Praising the managers or leaders who are supporting or getting involved with wellbeing strategies shows them and the others who work for you that wellbeing is valued and important in your company. For leaders who may be slower to adopt wellbeing initiatives, seeing their colleagues acknowledged for the work they have done in this area may be enough to get them onboard.
Performance reviews: Changing the way you review managers’ job performance can also show them that workplace wellbeing is not something to be ignored. You may choose to focus not just on what is achieved by leaders, but on how it is achieved to make it clear that helping support the wellbeing of their direct reports can empower them to achieve greater results.
Build a culture of leadership, not micro-management
Micro-management: The traditional model of management tends to focus on telling employees what to do and how to do it with little room for using their initiative or trying something new. Employees may feel that every aspect of their job is dictated by their manager, and that they have very little say in the work they perform. This can be demotivating, and lead to stress or burnout if they feel too closely watched by their manager.
Leadership: On the other hand, leading people to perform their job in a way that best suits them wherever possible can encourage creativity and innovation. Leaders take employees along on the journey to achieving specific outcomes, helping them to think for themselves. This could help increase employee engagement and motivation, which in turn helps them feel happier at their jobs.
