The Impact of Workplace Wellbeing Specialists

Workplace wellbeing specialists are the future of workplace wellbeing,
and they’re way more accessible than you think.

‘Workplace wellbeing specialist’ is a fairly new job description for a profession that’s already been around at least 2 decades.

These specialists are health practitioners from a wide range of fields (physiologists, psychologists, doctors, physiotherapists etc) that specialise in lifestyle change, and workplace practices and dynamics.

This makes them ideally qualified to address the wellbeing of the workforce from both an individual and organisational perspective.

This is what makes them so valuable and what compounds their impact, that they address the person and the environment simultaneously, leading to far greater gains than focusing on one or the other.

The individual:

Each person is ultimately responsible for what they do and don’t do, and we’re all just trying to do the best we can with the skills we have, in the circumstances we have to work with.

Sometimes it’s easy to make the choices that increase our wellbeing and sometimes it’s very difficult. The difference is that people with a greater wellbeing skill set can make consistently better choices in a wider range of circumstances than people with a lesser skill set, which ultimately leads to better health and wellbeing.

This is what wellbeing specialists focus on for individuals, increasing their wellbeing skill set so they can thrive, even when the circumstances are not ideal.

This is the responsibility of the individual and is a powerful lever to pull, but it only gets us halfway there.

The organisation:

Whilst each person is responsible for the choices they make in various circumstances, organisations are responsible for creating those circumstances.

The better the circumstances, the easier it is to make good choices (especially for people who now have a vast wellbeing skill set), and the less stress individuals are put under in general.

Circumstances such as work schedules, meeting policies, communication, leadership tactics, trust, and a whole range of others will dictate how easy employees find it to apply their wellbeing skills and keep themselves healthy whilst also producing quality work over long periods of time.

This is the responsibility of the organisation and what completes the wellbeing equation.

This two-part plan of attack is how workplace wellbeing works best, and what every organisation should be striving to do, but it’s not always easy and not every leadership or HR team is experienced in this

This is why workplace wellbeing specialists exist.

They take the uncertainty out of the entire process and ensure that it’s done the way it should be which is a valuable set of skills to have.

A genuine commitment to wellbeing is by far the most important aspect in improving that wellbeing, but expertise and actionable knowledge direct that commitment where it should go and produce tangible results, which is the true value of workplace wellbeing specialists.

Full disclosure, I am completely biassed and will always advocate for workplace wellbeing specialists – because I am one and have been for many years – but that just means that I have seen the impact we make and the real lives we are able to change by doing what we do.

It’s the reason I love it and the reason I’ll be doing it for the rest of my life, because it’s worth it and it matters, and that’s a good enough reason to do anything.

For more info on what a workplace wellbeing specialist could do for your organisation, book in for a chat here or send me an email at [email protected].

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