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I hope your week is off to a great start friends,
 

The National Weather Service office in my hometown of Grand Rapids has an active (and often funny) social media presence. In early January, they put out this depressing little gem: “In the first 6 days of January, we have recorded 5 minutes of sunshine in Grand Rapids. Our last half-sunny day was December 28. Our last mostly sunny day? A month ago, December 4.”
 

To say Grand Rapids is a dreary place during winter months is a gross understatement. It is downright depressing how little sunshine we see during a typical West Michigan winter. You’ve probably heard of (or experienced first-hand) the lake effect snow we are famous for, but that translates to lake effect cloud cover as well.
 

For some of us, that lack of sunlight can lead to seasonal affective disorder (SAD). According to the Mayo Clinic, SAD is a type of depression that's related to changes in seasons. Most people experience SAD starting in the fall and through the winter months. SAD saps your energy and makes you feel moody. These symptoms often resolve during the spring and summer months.
 

SAD is a workplace issue as it contributes to presenteeism, or employees at work but not engaged, and absenteeism, or employees missing days of work. It may also adversely impact multiple areas of employee performance, including focus and decision making, time management, completing physical tasks, social interactions and communication.
 

I’ve suffered from SAD for years, in fact long before it was a diagnosed problem. I combat it with a “happy” light, a full spectrum desk lamp that mimics natural sunlight and automatically shifts the light throughout the day from a bright, white light in the morning to a softer hue as I move into the afternoon. Every little bit helps.
 

I mention this because winter is an excellent time to think about employee health and wellness. Whether you are in West Michigan, another cloudy Midwest locale or even if you are in a sunny climate, this tends to be a time when all our healthful New Year’s resolutions are forgotten and we fall back into bad habits.
 

Creating a comprehensive health and wellness program can be difficult, especially for small business owners. Luckily, our industry has INDEAL Cares. INDEAL Cares was established in 2020 with a vision to revolutionize the health and well-being of employees in North America – and globally – through a commitment to workplace wellness. Visit INDEAL Cares Resources page to access free information that will get your program off the ground or reach out directly to Executive Director Stefanie Ince to learn more about how INDEAL Cares can help with employee wellness or to donate to this worthy cause.
 

There is help available, whether you need to help some of your employees through SAD or if you’d like to create a complete employee wellness program.

MUST READS

Investing in employee wellness has grown and developed in the last three years. Wellness driven thinking was once a perk of the progressive and younger companies and has become a prerequisite for employee checklists. As employees seek work environments that put value on their mental and physical health, companies are striving to meet these needs. In this week’s focus we look at how and why workplace wellness will improve the future of a company, from the inside out.

THE C-SUITE'S ROLE IN WELL-BEING  

With the information gathered from their comprehensive analysis in 2022, Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence explain how their results from this survey illuminate the importance of evaluating the way in which you implement wellness in your organization. Communication and transparency are at the heart of a successful plan. The statistics in this piece will encourage you to take a closer look.

Read the article (Source: Deloitte)

INVESTING IN HEALTH AND WELLBEING AT WORK DOESN’T JUST BENEFIT INDIVIDUALS, IT’S ALSO GOOD FOR THE BOTTOM LINE 

Companies that invest in wellness will be ones who find themselves in a stronger position to weather financial and economic instability, according to this article. Strengthening an organization through investing in employees grows resilience and in light of our unpreparedness for a global pandemic, this seems like a no brainer.

Read the article (Source: Guardian News & Media)

FIVE WAYS TO PRIORITIZE WORKPLACE WELLNESS IN 2023 

Written at the close of 2022, this article is fresh and relevant and their five ways to prioritize wellness are thoughtful, insightful, and make sense. Remodeling your wellness program to be more inclusive, spend more on mental health, and make your offerings more personal are recommendations that this source says will go a long way to helping employees know that their needs are understood and that their mental and physical health will be positively impacted.
Read the article (Source: Corporate Wellness Magazine)

WORKER WELL-BEING IS IN DEMAND AS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE SHIFTS 

Though the ways in which the pandemic has impacted the workplace are still being discovered and quantified, we can all agree that the opinions and expectations about workplace wellness have dramatically changed. This dialed in look from a psychological lens provides useful tools to evaluate ways in which we might change the workplace on a holistic level; and that the improvements we make now are for the benefit of workplace culture on the whole.

Read the article (Source: American Psychological Association)

PERFECT YOUR PROJECT

This week’s most sought-after solutions for your spaces.

View this space and featured product on Pinpoint VIP. 
Not an INDEAL member? Visit our website for more info about the platform. 

FEATURED PRODUCTS

1. Canvas | Indiana Furniture

2. Rockstar | Indiana Furniture

3. Spirit | Indiana Furniture

TIPS AND TRICKS

Helpful hints to support your A-game.

BE PRODUCTIVE

3 EXCITING WAYS TO KICKOFF YOUR 2023 WORKPLACE WELLNESS CAMPAIGNS 

An article that focuses on cultivating wellness through building company culture that is simple, and inspiring. Written in January, it has the enthusiasm of a new year hopefulness with some ideas for wellness that are more focused on play and events where there is company wide participation. There are multiple ways to invest in workplace wellness, whether from a larger reaching plan that prioritizes mental health for all employees, or through building camaraderie through shared experiences.
Check it out (Source: TotalWellness)

BE WELL

EMPLOYEE HEALTH PROGRAMS WORTH INVESTING IN 

Not only does this piece cite the applicable elements of wellness, like stress management and time management, it approaches wellness programs and shares what helps them work. It is a rich resource of specific ideas about what workers want, without the rah-rah of many articles on wellness.
Check it out (Source: WellSteps.com)

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