We hope 2024 is off to a healthy, safe, and wonderful start! We also hope that you had an opportunity to reflect on ‘Themes’ you want to consider for the year. The themes for wellness, safety, and leadership are interconnected and impact each other. As was mentioned in the December newsletter, “There is an inextricable connection between the well-being of the organization, and the safety and well-being of the employees.”
The key is to just start! It is during the process of considering and planning themes that the benefits emerge. It truly is the journey that matters.
When thinking of themes or making continuous improvements, here are 3 brief, but important questions to consider:
- Are your employees safe and sound? For example, hazards addressed, trained, resources available, resilient, managing energy, happy, content, practicing healthy behaviors?
- Do employees perceive that they are safe and sound?
- What does safe and sound mean to you? To your employees?
Certainly, the answer to all 3 questions may change day to day, or depending on the circumstances, many times during a day! What matters is that the questions be considered rather than making assumptions about how things are going. Being safe and sound also requires thinking outside the boxes of physical safety concerns alone, traditional wellness program models, and the usual definitions of leading and managing, especially in this unprecedented time.
This means considering, yes – physical aspects of safety and health, but as importantly – or even more importantly – the social, emotional, and psychological aspects of safety and well-being. It is at the intersection of safety, wellness, and leadership that being safe and sound transpires.
Employees want a sense of belonging, meaningful connections, autonomy, a voice, and meaning & purpose. How employees are treated, how they feel at the end of the day, and how they perceive whether they feel safe, satisfied, and healthy, matter for safety, well-being, engagement, and productivity.
Being safe and sound can, and perhaps should, include all of this by embedding great leader qualities and all the dimensions of safety and wellness within the culture and work climate. These collectively foster organizational and individual well-being, which in turn cultivate a safe and sound organizational culture.
In case you missed last month’s blogs on themes:
Cultivate 10 Leadership Themes
Occupational Health and Safety Themes
Please contact us with any questions or to discuss ideas!