For a workplace to function efficiently, it is required for the employees to take good care of their wellbeing. With physically and mentally healthy employees, the workplace achieves its maximum productivity levels. Workplace wellbeing is dependent on the employees’ wellbeing.
In every field of life, maintaining balance is essential. Similarly, a balance must be maintained between one’s work and life. Different factors can disrupt the balance. Knowing both workplace factors and personal factors that impact the wellbeing of employees is important.
In the past, knowledge regarding these personal factors was ignored. However, with the increase in mental health awareness, every industry is moving towards ensuring employee wellness. With that comes the need to know what these personal factors are that may be impacting the wellbeing of the workers at the workplace. Following are some of these factors:
Personal Issues
Personal issues could be anything from financial issues to family matters. They could also be related to dealing with grief after a loss. Dealing with such issues in personal life and keeping the work-life separated becomes impossible. Employees dealing with personal issues may be physically present in the workplace, but their heads might be elsewhere.
Relationships
The relationships you have at work and the ones in your personal life have a huge impact on how you perform in the workplace. The relationship with people affects their feelings and emotions and as a result, you act accordingly. If a person has a good relationship with their employees, it is more likely that while at work they are performing well as they are satisfied with the people they are working with. However, if there is tension between colleagues or disagreement, the quality of the work is likely low. The same goes for relationships other than the workplace. Dealing with tension and stress in personal life could result in the employees not being able to provide the needed amount of focus that is needed.
On the other hand, research conducted to analyse the correlation between childhood trauma and workforce functionality showed people who had dealt with trauma in their childhood were more likely to have lower functionality compared to the ones who didn’t. These results were mostly focused on absenteeism and presenteeism. This shows how adverse childhood experience also plays a role in the current wellbeing of the employees.
Social deprivation is also another factor that plays a role in employee wellbeing. People busy working all the time tend to manage very little time for their personal life commitments. This results in social deprivation and as a result, the balance between work and life is disrupted.
Personal Characteristics
Not knowing how to do things because of the lack of knowledge, skills or abilities is also a factor that could impact not only your wellbeing, but the wellbeing of those around you. If an employee doesn’t have the required experience or knowledge for their job role, there will likely be disruption caused within the workplace. The tasks given to the employee will not be completed to the required satisfaction, affecting not only the employee but also the other colleagues.
It is of utmost importance for any organisation to be able to recognise these weaknesses among the employees where they lack knowledge or skills and then provide them with the opportunities to improve and grow by learning the skills that are required.
Personal Behaviours
Lastly, the personal behaviour of employees is another area that impacts employees’ wellbeing. This could include substance abuse, the diet employees have, the amount of exercise they are doing and the amount of sleep they are getting. All these behaviours impact the overall wellbeing of the employees within the workplace. For example, if the employees are not eating healthy, they will not fully perform in the workplace as they will have symptoms such as fatigue. Similarly, if the employees are not getting enough sleep required for them, they will result in being anxious, fidgety and tense in the workplace.
Next Step
Now you ask what you can do to make a change. How can you minimise the negative impact of these personal factors on work? You could implement various strategies within your workplace to ensure that employees’ individual factors are not causing a destructive effect.
You could implement appropriate policies and procedures such as anti-bullying policies, to help employees be aware of what behaviours would be inappropriate within the workplace. Along with that, you have the option to allow the employees to be aware of the employee assistance program (EAP). Overall consulting a wellbeing manager will help in aligning the needs of the organisations and the employees in order to ensure employee wellbeing in the workplace.