Wellness Solutions

Approach

The purpose of our programmes is –

To increase awareness and understanding in the areas of wellness, fatigue and workplace stress
To involve employees in the development and ongoing delivery of wellness and healthy work activities as an extension of Health and Safety or HR strategy
To develop systems and methods to identify, control and monitor significant stressors
To facilitate individuals taking greater responsibility for their own wellbeing
To increase individual vitality and organisational efficiency, reduce accidents and sick leave and thus increase productivity

In order to achieve these outcomes, we focus on five areas:

Develop a positive, proactive and preventative strategy

In the past, wellness programmes have often been seen as unnecessary and stress was something you "just have to get used to". Many organisations have ended up with the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff solution, i.e. waiting until the stress levels start to become really intolerable before considering some kind of intervention. From a compliance point of view, this approach falls short of the necessary criteria of employer responsibilities. We assist you to develop a robust and proactive approach that:

Utilises systematic and effective methods to identify, control and monitor hazards
Puts an emphasis on moving towards wellness rather than away from stress
Focuses on generating wellness on a day-to-day basis rather waiting for the stress to build up and become overwhelming
Harnesses the power of positivity (we can never have too much wellness!)
Is preventative in nature

Create a co-operative venture

The law states that employers must provide reasonable opportunities for employees to participate in developing and implementing health and safety practices. Here is an opportunity to utilise what is typically an untapped resource. Operational managers are often busy and motivated by legislative pressure whereas the people involved in the operation can be less cluttered and able to generate creative and practical solutions to everyday challenges to health and wellness. At Wellness Solutions we encourage both innovation and participation. This allows everyone to gain confidence in what they are personally able to contribute and starts building wellness from the bottom up. It also promotes joint responsibility, accountability and co-operation.

Identify needs before offering solutions

Some wellness and stress prevention programmes don't work because their solutions have been based on the wrong definitions of the problem, and there has been too little emphasis on diagnosis. What creates stress in one organisation or one individual may not be a problem to another. Therefore we recommend a diagnostic phase in order to accurately identify areas of concern. At the same time it is equally important to find out the things that people report as rewarding and enjoyable about their work. In getting clearer about what is working really well, these particular strengths can be acknowledged and built on.

Integrate with organisational processes

A successful approach should be integrated across your organisation in the form of a wellness policy, which gets consistently implemented. Stand-alone or one-off wellness and stress programmes which are unrelated to the day-to-day processes, functioning and culture of your organisation, are unlikely to have long-term benefits. We believe that creating and maintaining a culture of wellness in the workplace requires:

Active support from senior managers
A policy which is clearly and repeatedly communicated to all employees
Accurate risk assessment
Involving employees
Providing staff training
Developing relevant and ongoing wellness/healthy work initiatives

Focus on both the individual and the organisation

Rather than trying to isolate and reduce stress or wellness to one particular area of functioning, it is more useful to look at your organisation and its people as one whole system. It might be quicker and easier to offer staff training in an attempt to increase individual coping strategies and levels of resiliency, but it's unrealistic to think that if only the people in an organisation can change, then the problems will be eliminated. It is crucial therefore to focus as much on controlling organisational stressors as it is on initiating employee-directed programmes. More recent transactional models of workplace stress will bear this out, as they take into account both external stressors and individual appraisal and responses. The characteristics of healthy work recently detailed by OSH similarly recognise the value of both the subjective and objective, individual and collective domains. For maximum leverage, our wellness approach looks at the whole person as well as the whole organisation.