An effective corporate wellness culture is highly customized, based on what works best for each individual organization and its
employees, says executive leadership and lifestyle/wellness coach Gail Voisin
because if it’s part of the strategic business plan, it signals a
strong senior leadership commitment. What gets measured gets
done! It’s no longer a nebulous idea. If senior leaders are sup-ported
in achieving specific results when it comes to wellness
– and an element of their compensation is tied to it – it also
stands to reason that an organization is much more likely to see
positive results.
Any final thoughts on the subject you’d like to share?
GV: In my experience in coaching senior executives in Fortune
1000 corporations, I’ve learned that we need to focus on lead-ers
and their behaviours when it comes to creating a culture of
wellness. Leaders need to make wellness a lifelong habit; organi-zations
need to have a clear focus on wellness in their business
plans, vision, values and employee-based initiatives, thereby cre-ating
a culture that values and promotes wellness. This means
that leaders must actively be role models through their behav-iours
demonstrating that they are committed to wellness
organizationally and personally. It’s about actions, not words.
My belief has now been supported in the Ivey Business School
white paper, as well.
Leaders and employees are then better able to maximize their
skills and potential and apply them on the job. Wellness also
cover feature
makes good business sense from an attraction and retention per-spective,
which adds up to dollars and cents and a greater ROI.
Imagine this: You are in great physical shape and feel good.
You have a partner or spouse, family and friends who matter to
you. You have time for yourself and time for them. You excel at
work and you enjoy developing your successors. Your results have
incredible impact on the organization. You go to work with pas-sion
and you come home with passion. You find time for your
hobby, sports, fitness and other interests. You have more to give
others, yet it doesn’t seem like you need to expend all your energy.
You have more time for community involvement and the more you
give, the better you naturally feel. You are engaged and empow-ered,
and your enthusiasm is contagious.
Now imagine you have a workforce full of leaders and employ-ees
who feel like this, thanks to a culture that supports and
promotes wellness. How powerful could that be, and how limit-less
are the possibilities? n
Gail Voisin is an executive leadership and lifestyle/wellness coach and
author of All Together Now: Vision, Leadership and Wellness
(Dundurn Press, 2011). She’s been helping businesses across North
America develop, implement and sustain thriving wellness cultures
for decades.
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