Understanding Corporate Wellness: How to Find Companies Who Prioritize Employee Well-Being

By Jody Bell

With 67% of adults experiencing extremely high-stress levels due to the COVID-19 outbreak, incorporating wellness into company culture has never been more crucial. Even before a pandemic, self-care habits have been proven to spur productivity and engagement — thus being mutually beneficial to both employees and employers. 

With GenZ entering the workforce, employees who lack a culture surrounding wellness may struggle to attract this very sustainability and self-care centered generation. We are a generation that has begun to cut away from the stigmas surrounding mental and emotional illness. Thus we can recognize the relationship between poor company culture and the mental issues that accompany it. 

However, how do we, as young people entering our very first jobs, recognize if a company prioritizes employee wellbeing and self-care?  

Jennifer Openshaw, CEO of Girls With Impact, sat down with model, self-care activist, and CEO, Danika Brysha to discuss this. Brysha owns and runs several ventures, and makes it a point to keep employee well-being at the forefront of her companies’ goals. Here are her tips on what to look for in a company in regards to their employee wellness habits. 

Leaders With a Healthy Work-Life Balance 

Getting work emails after midnight? While some people interpret this as a devoted leader, it really should be a red flag into the company culture. 

Leaders should lead by example, so if your boss is working late nights and not prioritizing their sleep, it soon becomes an expectation of employees. As a result, there might be pressure from co-workers or superiors to follow this behavior, even though these habits truly shouldn’t be normalized. These behaviors are indicative of a workplace that prioritizes the company over employee well-being; thus facilitating burnout. 

Open Conversations Regarding Employee Boundaries

When speaking to your superiors, would you feel comfortable setting clear boundaries on when you can work? Or do you feel a pit in your stomach that makes you worried about these conversations? 

If you experience the latter, this is a second red flag. Many companies assign tasks and set deadlines without fully understanding the work that goes into it. Thus, employees feel pressured to meet these difficult expectations and rarely will discuss extensions with their bosses. However, these conversations are crucial, and if your boss is willing to listen to your reasoning behind missing a deadline it reveals that they care about employee well-being. 

Normalized Mental Health Days

How often have you lied about why you’re taking a day off? Whether you’re watching TV or at the beach these days off are your personal days and you shouldn't feel pressured to lie. 

As Brysha puts it, “our sick days are also our well days.”

If you have co-workers making jokes about their recent lies excusing their days off, this is a major red flag. Speak to your supervisor with honesty; let them know you need a mental day off work and see how they react. If they begin asking questions or persuading you to change your mind, make sure you stick up for yourself and recognize that this attitude is not healthy.

We all know GenZ is changing companies’ cultures — forcing them to become more socially conscious in ways that were never truly seen before. However, it’s equally important that we put pressure on companies to be more focused on employee well-being; our generation has the power to stop normalizing employee burnout if we advocate against it.

Check out the full interview below:

Jody Bell, 19, is Girls With Impact’s Chief Editor and a program graduate. Girls With Impact is the nation’s only online, after-school, entrepreneurship program for teen girls, turning them into tomorrow’s business leaders and innovators.