How to Keep Employees Healthy During Busy Season with Wellness Programs

“Whether the work is creative, quantitative or physical, we find that providing healthy options keeps people happy and healthy.” ─ Paul Chapuis, Founder and CEO of OnQ, a leading manufacturer of in-store retail displays.

Employee wellness programs continue to gain traction as companies of all sizes realize their true value. A well-designed wellness program is proven to lower healthcare costs, increase employee engagement and productivity, lower absenteeism, and improve recruitment and retention efforts.

Motivating your employees to embrace wellness programs during busy season

For seasonal industries such as tourism, agriculture, and accounting, it is especially important to sharpen the focus on overall wellness during busier times to alleviate added stress. Throughout the years, implementing the following strategies has helped us to launch a successful wellness program motivating employees to incorporate healthy behaviors into their daily routines:

• Developing activities for employees of all ages and abilities. When thinking about wellness, most people think first of physical fitness. If that’s where you’d like to start, try to include a variety of activities, like a walking challenge or chair yoga.
• Keeping each employee’s health concerns in mind. Prepare a brief survey to learn employees’ wellness interests and any physical challenges they might have. Employees are much more likely to participate in an activity that they themselves suggested!
• Securing support from management. While wellness isn’t all top-down, having managers and team leaders actively promoting and participating in wellness activities sets the example for the organization.
• Organizing challenges and including incentives. Social connectedness is an integral part of our existence and has a major impact on the success of wellness initiatives. Team challenges are a great way to keep your employees engaged, promote friendly competition and add more fun. You can make it work for your remote employees, as well! Find a virtual space, such as Slack, where participants can communicate achievements, motivation and advice. And of course, remember prizes. Prizes can be anything: a free lunch, gift cards, fitness gear, company merchandise… don’t be afraid to get creative and showcase your culture.

Examples of effective wellness programs launched during busy season

In addition to our year-round wellness offerings (on-site gym, healthy snacks, massages, physical therapy, standing desks, etc.), Kaufman Rossin implemented several benefits this tax season:

• Weekly meditation classes. This busy tax season, we partnered with Innergy Meditation to bring an eclectic mix of all-levels classes, from mindful breathing to sound meditation.
• Weekly yoga classes. Yoga is open to everyone and can be practiced anywhere. Take our Ft. Lauderdale office, for example. They practice chair yoga in the conference room every Wednesday, while the Miami office enjoys a vinyasa class twice a week.
• Pedometer (walking) challenge. We keep everyone engaged and motivated with a different walking challenge each week, which also means more chances to win! Participants joined different categories based on their current fitness levels.
• Weight-loss competition. This annual Kaufman Rossin tradition was started by Lazaro Escandel, assurance and advisory services associate principal, as a way to counter the long hours spent sitting at our computers and all the delicious catered dinners for those working late. The most competitive participants can be seen running during lunchtime or making frequent use of the sauna.
• Nutrition classes. Monica Auslander of Essence Nutrition will return to Kaufman Rossin to continue sharing her knowledge. Monica has educated us on topics like eating healthy within your culture, how to finally control sugar cravings and packing the perfect lunch and snacks for work. She also hosted a cooking class where we sampled smoothies and took home overnight oats in mason jars.

Almost one-third of our workforce is currently participating in the Pedometer Competition. We find that if employees particularly enjoy a wellness initiative, they are more likely to share their experience with their peers and will bring them along to future activities. In this way, we continue to drive engagement and grow our program to reach a larger audience.

Management’s support has been critical to the success of the program. I especially loved the day when everyone in Kaufman Rossin’s estate and trust practice took a break from an unusually stressful project to join the meditation class and filled most of the room!

Designing a wellness program that caters to a multi-generational workforce with different lifestyles and various health concerns has certainly been a welcomed challenge. Our people-first culture empowers us to push forward and make our employees’ happiness and wellbeing a priority. Happy employees = happy clients.

“It’s about making the program a part of office culture in general — changing that water cooler conversation.”  – Amy McDonough, VP and GM for Fitbit Wellness.