Turning wellbeing ideas into actions

A ‘quick win’ can get your wellbeing program going with minimal cost or resources involved. These highly visible strategies can show workers and managers that you’re doing something.

Here are some ideas that could work for you.

Healthy eating

Provide cost-recovery fruit and vegetable bowls. Have a variety of fruit. Resealable bags of carrot sticks or celery sticks can help increase vegetable consumption. Monitor to ensure there’s little or no wastage.
If you have a fridge, provide cost-recovery yoghurt or cheese snacks, preferably low-fat and low-salt varieties.
Provide healthy options in your vending machines.
When you’re catering meetings, include a fresh fruit and vegetable platter and healthy sandwiches/wraps instead of fried or baked goods.
Encourage workers to drink more water with re-usable water bottles. Consider providing water bottles to them.

Physical activity

Go for walking meetings (instead of sitting or ‘coffee’ meetings). These work well with a maximum of 3 people.
Encourage and support workers to get off their bus several stops earlier or park the car further away from work, so they do some walking
Offer flexible working hours so workers can be active before work, after work and in lunch breaks.
Encourage workers to use any stairs.
Promote local, state and national physical activity events, such as Walk to Work Day and Ride to Work Day.

Sedentary behaviour

Encourage workers to stand and stretch every time they answer the phone.
Place printers further away from desks.
Put stand-and-stretch breaks on meeting agendas.
Encourage stop-and-stretch breaks on long drives.

Social, mental and emotional wellbeing

Display promotional posters that encourage open discussion about mental health issues, and where to go for help.
Offer flexible working arrangements that accommodate workers’ circumstances outside the workplace (such as child care and family illnesses).
If you have an employee assistance program (EAP), promote its use by displaying posters and promoting it in staff newsletters and at staff meetings. Some EAPs have programs to help managers deal with difficult situations.
Managing mental health and wellbeing needs to be integrated into your safety management system, too; this includes conducting a risk assessment for psychosocial hazards.

Smoking

Provide information about quitting smoking and the benefits of quitting.
If you have a a designated smoking area, make it as far away from the main work area as possible. This reduces exposure to environmental tobacco smoke for non-smokers, encourages users to walk further, and may even discourage users from smoking, causing them to reduce smoking while at work.
Support your workers to quit smoking by offering time off to see their doctor about quitting.

Alcohol and other drugs

If alcohol is provided at a work function, always provide non-alcoholic drinks and plenty of food (and not just salty, greasy options that can make people thirsty).
If alcohol is provided at a work function, anticipate the need for alternative transport (such as taxis or public transport) and encouraging people to use this if necessary.
Display information on safe alcohol consumption guidelines.
Display information on the effects of illicit and prescription drugs.