Have you seen those posts about the “10 Coolest Offices Around The World” or the “Best Place on Earth to Work”? If you’ve clicked on these, what you’ll commonly find is bright and almost offensive colours splashed on the walls, kooky decor like a swing for creative thinking, or an indoor basketball court to complement the in-house chef. While some of these things might seem amazing, there is plenty of evidence that shows workplaces with a focus on employee wellbeing have less absenteeism, and that teams that feel healthy and happy, work harder, perform better, and want to stay longer.
We get a lot of compliments about the decor of the Threesides office and it’s always a great recruitment plug, but we know it’s our health and wellbeing program that is making a big difference to the personal and professional lives of our team.
How Is Threesides fostering a healthy workplace?
At Threesides, we are a dynamic and active bunch, and I can confidently say that everyone has their own unique hobbies, habits, and interests. We march to the beat of our own drums, and that’s how we like it! This does, however, mean that the Operations Team has a solid job of providing accessible options for everyone to support their health and wellbeing.
A Wellbeing Calendar with monthly themes
The idea of wellbeing is an extremely broad subject that cannot be tackled in one meeting. Wellbeing can include physical, mental, spiritual, economic and social wellbeing. At the start of the year, we developed a Wellness Calendar with a monthly focus to provide activities and weekly articles around these themes to dive deeper into the many aspects of wellbeing.
Encouraging a healthy environment
Working in Dickson is tough! We are surrounded by so many great places to eat which can have an impact on our wallets and our waistline. While we absolutely encourage a treat-yo-self moment here at Threesides, we also provide amenities to cook and keep your food fresh in our kitchenette, and healthy snacks to help avoid the 3pm slump such as popcorn packs, fresh fruit and yoghurts. An open plan office encourages teammates to move around for collaboration, and our sit-to-stand desks keep us active while we work on your marketing goals!
tALKING TO THE PROFESSIONALS
We are a pretty knowledgeable bunch when it comes to marketing, but we are absolutely not professionals when it comes to health and wellbeing. We are so lucky to have incredible workplace connections and waste no time in outsourcing healthy workplace practices from them.
Last month, our friend Kate Freeman from The Healthy Eating Clinic conducted a survey and provided a full report to us about our office eating habits and a presentation on workplace nutrition. This gave us some great insight into how we can improve our diets at work and where we can improve our productivity by fueling our bodies. This month, Jason from Head to Health spoke with us about mental health in the workplace and how we can support ourselves, our colleagues, and our friends with their mental health.
We love to share, so here are some ideas for your workplace
So what are some simple changes that you or your employer could make to encourage a health-conscious workplace?
- Encourage breaks away from your desks, and provide healthy food for meetings and snacks, such as veggie plates with dips, fresh salad wraps or muesli bars.
- Limit activities revolving around alcohol consumption, such as after-work drinks or having your Christmas party at a bar. Try a group baseball day instead, or get zen with a group pottery class or yoga day to break up the workplace monotony.
- Visit the ACT Healthier Work website for tips and information on becoming a healthier workplace
- Ask your team! Send out a survey to see how you could be supporting them in their health and wellbeing and have one-on-one meetings with your team regularly to ensure they receive the support they need.
