Today’s best employers are offering generous wellbeing perks, from unlimited leave to fitness sessions, to lure and keep high-performers. Aussie infrastructure company Pensar offers a free boxing program to attract resilient people and support their current employees in personal development.
Annika Blau reporting for ABC news shares the top employers offering wellbeing perks to attract and retain the best people.
“Google have nap pods. Netflix, Virgin and LinkedIn have unlimited annual leave. Deloitte offers free cooking classes while Macquarie Group has onsite yoga […] after all, healthy staff are productive staff.”
According to Blau, “businesses offering wellbeing perks and flexibility top LinkedIn’s list of the companies Australians most want to work for.”
Brisbane-based infrastructure firm Pensar offers a free intensive boxing program for their all their staff. The initiative has been a huge hit (pun intended!). Their in-house coach is three-time Australian light-middleweight champion Tyrone Tongia.
This ties in with their desire to attract and retain resilient people that suit high-risk construction and isolating FIFO work. Pensar believes in supporting their staff, as mental health issues are statistically higher in their industry. Boxing is a great way to stimulate mental alertness, develop mindsets that can overcome challenges, foster resilience and personal development, and strengthen connections between colleagues.
According to Pensar, “we place great emphasis on creating a positive and productive workplace, and a big part of that is providing opportunities for our people to engage in team building, personal development, and mindfulness activities. Perhaps a little surprisingly, boxing delivers on all of these elements.”
Pensar hopes to create an environment that fosters personal satisfaction and supports productivity. Their onsite boxing classes are just one way they deliver this to their teams. It helps employees in their personal goals, self-development, and mindfulness.
A caution about wellbeing perks
Blau includes additional commentary from Dr. McGrath-Champ from the University of Sydney Business School, providing a valid caution to business leaders.
“There’s a lot that employees may gain from wellbeing programs,” she says. “But we need to be very careful they don’t become a form of ‘responsibilisation’, where companies are expecting workers to perform their task well and maintain their wellbeing, in instances where these may not be compatible.”
“Where workload is a problem, saying ‘Oh, just do a bit more mindfulness’ and ‘make sure you’re eating well’, that’s individualising the problem and exempting an employer from making sure employees’ task load is manageable.”
Offering health and well-being perks is well and good; however, be mindful that these perks don’t compensate from poor working conditions or unreasonable workloads. Health and wellbeing offerings should be balanced with manageable work expectations.
“If companies want to genuinely improve staff wellbeing, Dr McGrath-Champ says, they must ask: “is this what employees seek and want? Branding alone is not a good enough motivation.”
Does your organisation provide health and wellbeing initiatives, and have you seen positive results? Let us know in the comments.
Source
Australian employers offering unlimited leave, Lego rooms and onsite boxing
Annika Blau
ABC News
Boxing our way to improved team performance
Pensar