From the Desk of Paul:
There is so much to be gained for organizations with a strong focus on the Emotional, Spiritual and Social Health of its employees. Greater employee engagement, retention, performance and culture to name a few. Other benefits that are often overlooked are concepts such as respect from the community served, appreciation from industry peers and most importantly, the indirect benefits enjoyed by the friends and family members of employees who enjoy a healthy whole self.
How can this be accomplished? It seems relatively simple in theory, yet more difficult in practice. Why? Because it requires the organization to be seemingly sacrificial in some areas. Organizations with this type of focus are willing to sacrifice resources, namely time and money, to invest in the Emotional, Spiritual and Social Health of their employees. Such investments may range from community involvement projects that allow for in-kind donation of services to the availability of corporate chaplains. Most of all, the requirement involves empathy on the part of the employer for the employees needs that are outside of the day-to-day achievement of organizational objectives. It is less tangible than compensation and benefits – it is recognition that everyone has a life outside of the workday and sometimes that part of life can be overwhelmingly challenging for employees. It is also recognizing the intangible benefits of an employee feeling like they have contributed to some greater cause than just earning their paycheck – think paid time to support disaster relief for a community or organizational support for some social cause that employees are passionate about, like Wounded Warriors or Habitat for Humanity. Sometimes it is as simple as taking time out from tasks to just personally check in with employees to see how they are doing and providing resources when they are facing challenges outside of work. Engaging in that type of activity on a regular basis directly impacts the Emotional, Spiritual and Social Health of the employee population.
Some indirect benefits may include greater employee engagement and loyalty while reducing employee turnover, but those aren’t the right reasons for engaging in such focus on these areas of health and well-being. Doing so would smell of insincerity and hidden agendas. No, the only right reason for making this an area of focus is because we are all people and we should want to be better human beings by meeting the needs of other human beings around us. In doing so, we will always find ourselves blessed beyond measure with results that matter…healthier selves and healthier people around us!
As always, if you have questions or comments that you would like for me to address, please contact me at pmeadows@itgroupva.com.
Paul Meadows,
President/CEO
