by We spoke with Katarina Matic, Global Senior Director at Montieth and Company about how even the smallest shops can be wellness leaders.
These days, an organization’s commitment to workplace wellness can be one of the most important influences on employees’ sense of work-life balance. As more people across the country seek to focus on their health and sense of wellbeing, organizations have been challenged to step up and provide programs that cater to this trend.
“When you roll out wellness initiatives at a small company, it’s much easier to see the impact of your efforts because you can use surveys that can cater better to individual needs,” said Matic. “It can sometimes be a bit of a moving target in finding what works, but having a personal touch in wellness is important.”
Katarina went on to break down wellness into three buckets — self-care and health, work-life balance, and team building. She said that all three of these wellness aspects must work in harmony to provide employees with everything they need to realize their full selves, particularly at small companies. She added that wellness initiatives at smaller companies should have their impacts felt outside the walls of the business, whether those boundaries are physical or virtual.
“Wellness initiatives like self-care days are a great way for both employees and the company to take a step back from highly stressful situations,” Matic said, “[They] enable us to gain some perspective on what grounds us.”
Katarina says that healthy workplace environments should exist regardless of where employees are in the world. Even if cultural differences might exist surrounding time off or regarding healthcare, wellness should have a singular focus – the wellbeing of employees.
“Wellness should exist in a positive culture that values feedback from its employees. That’s the cornerstone of making wellness work, regardless of the size of the organization” Matic said.
The full article can be found on Ragan Communications.