You're No Good to Me Dead!-Promoting Wellness at Work

I thought this would be a good topic given that everyone seems to have some stage of a cold or flu at work this week.  It's also January, when many are trying to improve their health for the new year.

As bosses, we've got to optimize performance, and it's important to have people who are well to accomplish this.   Some bosses feel if they express too much concern for people's well-being then they'll come across being soft and people will take advantage.    I once heard about a boss who wanted to support wellness without appearing "nice" so he would say "You're no good to me dead!" 

Gallup researchers have spent years studying well-being and according to thm, the average sick day costs a business about $348 in lost productivity in the U.S.  The annual cost of those with the lowest well-being costs $28,000 a year compared with those with the highest who have lost productivity costs of only5 $840 a year.

Promoting well-being in your workplace is not only the right thing to do by the people, it's the best for business!

According to Gallup's book Wellbeing--The Five Essential Elements, physical wellbeing is only one of 5 distinct factors for overall wellbeing:

Career Wellbeing-- liking what you do every day
Social Wellbeing-- liking who you are with every day
Financial Wellbeing-- liking how you are living every day
Physical Wellbeing-- having good health and energy to get things done every day
CommunityWellbeing-- being engaged where you live