Compelling strategies to navigate the well-being crisis at work.
As the world around us become more chaotic and stressful, employees everywhere are struggling to juggle work and life. The quest to find balance is an increasing challenge for professionals and the organizations.
While the day-to-day stresses of life have increased in the past decade, new phenomenon like fear of missing out (FMO) driven by social media creates unnecessary urgency and anxiety that continues to impact the mental health and wellness of employees at work and in their lives.
Employees are showing up to work stressed and burnt out from life, making it harder for employers to see a return on the workplace wellness initiatives. We need more than just workplace wellness. The time has come for a whole person wellness approach if we are to are to be successful in the new world of work. We need a systems approach that cultivates well-being intelligence into everything we do, helping us develop competencies that can be applied in work and life.
The elements of our lives must integrate to promote total well-being if we are to address the challenges of stress, burnout, and mental disease that is slowly taking the workforce hostage. We can no longer pretend that the way we live and choices we make in life is irrelevant to our ability to be well at work.
At the same time, we cannot pretend that what we do at work does not impact our ability to live life well. The way we are treated at work, our being included and valued in a work environment that promotes psychological safety is paramount to our success in life.
Most of us identify with our careers, so when things go awry with our careers it impacts our sense of self-worth. Thus, it is especially important that we acknowledge the impact of our work environment on our self-esteem and mental health, as well as our ability to be successful in our communities.
Over the past decade, I have done extensive research, writing and practice around wellness competencies to promote well-being intelligence. Wellness competencies helps to promote a mindset of well-being, as well as a practice of wellness. If we are to develop the necessary well-being intelligence that enables us to treat others with dignity and respect at work, then we need to have measurable competencies to support and promote this.
Competencies are learned, they are measurable, and they also promote mindset shift, new skills, and habits. It was interesting to read this article on the need for well-being intelligence for the new world of work. Though I agreed with most of what the author discussed, it seemed bare as to how we should obtain this intelligence. As a Though Leader in the space, I thought it important to share how beneficial wellness competencies will become for organizations looking for measurable outcomes or an ROI on their wellness investment.
In a meeting today with two colleagues, it became apparent how important the wellness competencies are for professionals seeking to gain balance. It gives them a starting point to work from and a way to measure their progress using a systems framework. Too often we are weighing and measuring well-being success from a scale, or a tape and it is focused on what we see in the mirror. Wellness competencies promote well-being intelligence by developing the skills to engage with ourselves, each other, and our environment to promote well-being.
Over the last decade, we have developed the wellness competency coach training program and the wellness competency curriculum and licensing program to help take this message far and near, as organizations around the globe struggle to find new ways to develop well-being intelligence as a business strategy.
Check out our wellness competency framework and wellness competency curriculum licensing program for more information on developing well-being intelligence in your organization.
To Your Wellness,
Joyce
