The theme of World Health Day this year is “Our Planet, Our Health.” The first thing that comes to mind with this how we should treat our bodies is how we should the planet too. Changing the world begins from the inside out. Mental health directly affects physical health. This is why stress management is so important inside and outside of the workplace. Did you know that we spend 1/3 of our lives working and also, 80% of workers feel stress on the job (American Institute of Stress)? Makes sense then that we should be happy in what we choose for a career as well as the work environment we end up in. From a management standpoint there are so many benefits to assist in preventing work stress for employees. Some of these are but not limited to: reduced poor mental and physical health, reduced sick leave, increased productivity, job satisfaction, increased work engagement and overall improvement of employee health (Better Health). Here at Locomotive, our Founder & CEO, Dustin Pagliughi has always been an advocate of creating a work environment where all employees feel comfortable in their roles as stress free as possible. He believes that employees should be managed in a way that is nurturing and supported in their roles in a way that doesn’t involve micromanaging or making constant demands. If the work load is too much, he’s never afraid to step in and get his hands dirty and do the work. It’s easy since he loves what he does. Since the inception of Locomotive, all of its employees have been able to work remotely in order to promote a better work-life balance. In fact, all of our employees are spread out in many parts of world. Employee and client satisfaction were two of the reasons that the company was born from many years spent in an industry where they were overworked, all while they overdelivered.
As advocates of proper employee treatment, we will leave you with some ways to support employee stress reduction in the workplace that we find helpful at Locomotive.
1. Give credit when credit is due. Make sure to give recognition to employees for their good work performances. This will boost morale at the office.
2. Offer flexible work from home options. We realize that you may not be able to do this for every day of the week, but some find it helpful and are still productive away from the office, if not more. This gives employees more of a work-life balance.
3. Let them grow! This one is a huge! Make sure there are equal opportunities for growth within the company. If there isn’t much room to move up, offer incentives, such as holiday bonuses and raises.
4. Walk the walk like you talk the talk. Make sure that your organizational values align with your actions from management.
Circling back, you should treat your mind the way you should treat the planet. Litter free. Mental health is physical health. Stress will manifest its way out of the mind into physical forms throughout the body. Since work stress is one of the largest mental strains for adults it should be supervised properly from the top down in businesses. Our bodies are connected to everything on this planet. The air we breathe, the water we drink. When we begin to take care of ourselves physically and mentally from the inside out, our planet’s health can be an extension of that as well. Let’s all keep working together towards positive changes at home, at work, and on this large rock spiraling through space that we all share as one.
