These days, it takes more than increasing salaries to cultivate healthy and engaged employees. Although the financial reward is why most of us need to work in the first place, encouraging true on-the-job motivation and enthusiasm is a slightly more complex matter.
How To Use Training To Foster Healthy and Engaged Employees
One of the most influential studies, conducted by the UK Civil Service Health and Safety Executive (HSE), identifies these components of the workplace affecting employee health and engagement:
- Demands of the workplace.
- How well employees understand their role in the workplace.
- How well change is managed in the workplace.
- Control employees feel they have over their workplace.
- Support employees receive from their manager and peers.
- Quality of relationships in the workplace.
Interestingly, most of the components can be satisfied with training to significantly affect the well-being of your employees positively, which ultimately translates into high-performance and productivity. PulseLearning discusses the top 5 benefits training can offer to ensure healthy and engaged employees.
1. Provide role-specific induction training.
More often than not, organizations roll out generic induction programs to new starters. Although a portion of the content will relate to all employees, including targeted role-specific topics will ensure your employees understand the responsibilities of their role from day one.
2. Create a change journey.
Because most organizations are in a constant state of flux as they respond to the external environment and internal business factors, there are times when considerable change is necessary. It is vital that employees are taken on the change journey so they incrementally understand and accept proposed changes at individual, team, and organizational levels. Providing appropriate training and resources along the way is critical for ensuring employee health, well-being, and retention during these times.
3. Support, guide, and mentor.
What systems and processes does your organization have in place for providing manager and peer support? The HSE study indicated that lack of support was a key factor negatively affecting employee health and well-being. You could consider extending training beyond the classroom or computer by integrating it with a peer support or manager-led mentoring program to ensure employees can implement learned skills and knowledge in their daily roles.
4. Offer stress management opportunities.
Workplace demands and the quality of professional relationships also made the HSE study top six health and wellbeing components, highlighting the importance of training and supporting employees in effective stress management. Given its cumulative nature, stress can build and result in physical and emotional discomfort that can lead to illness. Providing the right stress-management training can reduce sick leave and increase overall employee productivity.
5. Put employees in control.
As indicated by the HSE study, employees can be compromised as workplace demands increase and telling your employees when and how they must complete training can contribute to this stressor. Mobile, online training solutions put your employees in the driving seat so they can choose to complete training responsibilities in the way that best suits them, such as off-site or in small windows of time between work tasks.
At PulseLearning, we develop effective, targeted eLearning and blended training solutions to assist organizations in fostering a healthy work environment and engaged employees.
Reference:
- APSC State of Service Report, chapter 2, Employee Engagement, Health, And Wellbeing
