Karina KundzinaHealth and wellbeing is essential to happiness and productivity, especially when it comes to running your startup. But when you’re a busy founder, wellbeing can often get placed on the backburner.
A survey by CIPD found that 27% of organisations with a health and wellbeing strategy reported improved productivity, and 46% claimed improved employee morale and engagement.
To help you stay motivated while running your business and keep your employees happy too, we’ve created a guide to help you understand the importance of wellbeing and how to make it a priority in your workplace. Plus, we’ve also compiled a handy list of wellbeing resources to help you get started.
The impact of poor wellbeing in the workplace
Poor wellbeing can have a numebr of negative impacts in the workplace. These include reduced productivity, increased absence, poor employee engagement and an overall decline in organisational performance.
Researchers at Oxford University have found that happy workers are at least 13% more productive, so it’s really worthwhile investing in health and wellbeing, especially as a small business owner.
There are many things that can trigger mental health problems and stress in the workplace. Here are some of the most common from mental health organisation, Mind:
- Long hours and little to no breaks
- Unrealistic expectations or deadlines
- High intensity and overly pressurised work environments
- Difficulty managing workloads or lack of control over work
- Inability to use annual leave
- Poor physical working environment
- Poor managerial support
- Lack of internal communication
These triggers can cause a lot of strain on a smaller business. As a startup, you’re probably used to working in a small, tight-knit team. The health and wellbeing of your employees will have a significant impact on the success of your startup, so it’s important to look after yourself and your team to ensure your business doesn’t suffer.
Work-life balance
Maintaining a healthy work-life balance helps reduce stress and prevents burnout in the workplace. According to a survey carried out by CIPHR, work-life balance (67%) is the number one factor for job seekers when looking for a new role.
In recent years, and especially post-pandemic, work-life balance has become a top priority for employees across the globe. So, how can you achieve the optimal balance?
1. Flexibility
Flexibility is one of the most important factors when it comes to work-life balance. Having the ability to adapt your daily work schedule makes for a positive work environment – for example, being able to attend doctor’s appointments or run urgent errands in business hours, or making time for exercise.
2. Encourage your employees to take breaks
Taking breaks throughout the day is crucial to boosting overall productivity. If you or your employees spend a lot of time working on computers, remember to take regular breaks to avoid eye strain. And it goes without saying you should be taking regular breaks too!
3. Set realistic goals
There’s nothing more stressful than an unrealistic target. Work with your employees to set goals that will push them, but are still attainable. Goals are designed to motivate, and should take into consideration the employee’s personal career targets, as well as the business’ overarching aims.
4. Lead by example
There’s no point encouraging your employees to do something if you don’t follow through with it yourself. Try to find the right balance in your own working lifestyle, and show them that wellbeing is a priority for you.
As a startup, it can be a little more challenging to tick all the boxes when it comes to work-life balance – but it’s not impossible. It’s important to implement work-life balance in your business model; it’ll improve your employees’ happiness and wellbeing, increase productivity in the workplace and reduce the risk of burnout which many startups suffer from.
Wellbeing resources for startups and founders
The emergence of health and wellbeing applications has built a hub of accessible, round-the-clock support for anyone that may need it. There’s a lot of choice out there, so it can be difficult and downright overwhelming to try to narrow down what will work best for you – and what will work well for your business too.
As a startup founder, we know your time is valuable, so we’ve put together a comprehensive list of some of the top wellbeing resources out there to help support you, your employees and your business.
Apps designed to improve your wellbeing
According to the mental health app Headspace, 70% of employees report that they’ve missed work this past year due to mental health issues. Such figures indicate that burnout is imminent. So, what can you do to prevent it?
There are numerous ways a wellness app can help you. Using health and wellbeing apps is a great way of managing stress, worries, improving sleep schedules and preventing burnout. Here’s a few of the most popular apps from across the wellness industry.
Calm
A health app designed to help you manage stress, sleep better and live a happier, healthier life. You will require a subscription to benefit from all the resources available on the app, but if you’re not sure if it’s right for you, you can trial the app for 14 days for free.
Headspace
Designed to help you create life-changing habits to support your mental health and find a healthier, happier you. Headspace is another great wellbeing app but you will need a subscription to benefit from all the resources available. However, it does offer a 7-day free trial to help you determine if it’s the right app for you.
SPOKE World
Created by The Pitch alumni, SPOKE is an app that helps you re-tune your mind through the power of music. SPOKE artists are trained by a team of clinical psychologists, therapists and neuroscientists and is a new take on your usual mindfulness apps.
Hub of Hope
The Hub of Hope is a completely free and confidential national mental health database, created by Chasing the Stigma (CTS). It brings together organisations and charities, large and small, from across the country who offer mental health advice and support.
MyPossibleSelf
Mental health support created by world-leading healthcare professionals that’s available for work and businesses. MyPossibleSelf offers cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to help you make sense of overwhelming problems by breaking them down into smaller parts. With tools like CBT, you’ll be able to reframe your negative thoughts into positive ones.
DARE
The DARE app is an evidence based training program to help people overcome anxiety, panic attacks, worry, and insomnia. DARE focuses on getting through to the root of your anxiety and helping you overcome it. The app is based on the best seller Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks by Barry McDonagh.
Happify
Happify brings you effective tools and programmes to help you take control of your feelings and thoughts. The apps techniques are developed by leading scientists and experts who’ve been studying evidence-based interventions in the fields of positive psychology, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) for decades.
Wellbeing resources for your business
According to Headspace, organisations that have employed mindfulness programs to support healthier cultures have benefitted from an 85% boost in attitude towards work, a 74% increase in engagement and a 70% improvement in teamwork and collaboration.
If you’re searching for a wellbeing platform for your business, here are a few to help get you started.
MindHug
MindHug provides a unique range of tailored psychological, social, cultural make-up, and therapeutic programmes, workshops and events to improve the mental wellbeing of businesses.
Unmind
Workplace wellbeing platform on a mission to create mentally healthy workplaces, where everyone can flourish. Unmind uses science-backed tools to see how wellbeing is impacting your business, track changes over time, get data-led insights and expert recommendations to drive your wellbeing strategy forward.
Calm Business
Helping your team or organisation of up to 100 employees get immediate mental health support with access to the Calm content library. WIth Calm Business you’ll be able to get the results that matter most to your business by improving employee health and increasing workplace productivity.
Welbot
Welbot is a daily wellness motivator that works with you to help build meaningful daily habits and helps you to become fitter, healthier and more focussed on a daily basis. Learning from your actions and inactions, Welbot provides you with a personalised track of physical and mental wellness.
Additionally, you can find handy articles on the Welbot website to learn more about employee wellbeing. Welbot does require a subscription and the price is tailored to the size of your business and the services required.
Every Mind at Work
Every Mind at Work offers wellbeing support and guidance for employees. Some of the amazing benefits include virtual workshops, wellbeing webinars, awareness campaigns, the use of their wellbeing app and much more. Every Mind at Work will help keep your employees feeling happy, healthy and productive.
Additional wellbeing resources
According to Mind, 60% of employees say they’d feel more motivated and more likely to recommend their organisation as a good place to work if their employer took action to support mental wellbeing.
Here are a few additional resources to help arm you with the tools needed to support and grow a happy and healthy workforce.
NHS mental health audio guides
Access a number of handy audio guides designed to help reduce stress and anxiety. This is a completely free resource offered by the NHS available to use by anyone at any time.
Acas
Acas is an advisory service funded by the government. The platform works with millions of employers and employees every year to improve workplace relationships. You can find a number of handy articles, guides on positive mental health at work as well as tune in to the Acas podcast.
Mental Health UK
Bringing together the heritage and experience of four charities from across the country who’ve been supporting people with their mental health for over 50 years. Mental Health UK provides online resources and support for anyone struggling with their mental health and workplace wellbeing.
Mental Health at Work
Offers information and resources. You’ll be able to find documents, guides, tips, videos, courses, podcasts, toolkits, templates and information from key organisations across the UK, all aimed at helping you get to grips with workplace mental health.
Living Life To The Full (LLTTF)
Living Life To The Full helps people tackle low mood, depression, stress and anxiety at every stage in life, through widely trusted, award-winning Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) educational life skills resources delivered in print and digital formats.
We know that finding the right resources is time consuming, especially when you run your own business. We hope that these resources have given you a head-start and saved you some time in your busy schedule.
If you’re looking for a little more advice from startup founders that have been where you are now, read our article Startup founders share 7 health and wellbeing routines that keep them thriving.
Shonette Laffy
