Salesforce Names 8 Ways to Encourage Your Team to Live Well at Work
OREANDA-NEWS. April 25, 2016. How do you set an example as a great leader? Is it by swapping lunch breaks for lunch meetings and emailing through the night? Or is it by taking time for the things you love, like family, yoga, and a good book?
I vote for the latter. Currently, I am the Senior Director of Engineering for Social.com at Salesforce, and I head up six teams in our Technology & Product organization. Although I set the bar high and challenge my employees to achieve the absolute best they can, I never take my eye off what life is really about: looking after your health, well-being, and loved ones.
In order to empower your team to prioritize wellness, you must first prioritize it yourself. I believe that no matter how busy you are, it’s important to lead by example. Here are eight ways to infuse wellness into the workplace and encourage your employees to do the same.
1. Exercise Regularly: Exercising keeps your body and mind strong. Pushing your strength and endurance outside the office will encourage you to push yourself in different ways in the office. Plus, it’s fun! I’m an amateur triathlete, and when my employees see me taking time to train, they feel more comfortable prioritizing exercise themselves.
2. Schedule Wellness Breaks: Block time every day to get away from your desk and be active, whether that means running, swimming, or practicing yoga. It’s not always easy, but if you give those sessions the same importance as any other meeting on your calendar, your health and happiness will benefit.
3. Put Family First: It’s important to empower your employees to deliver great results, but make sure they feel comfortable putting their loved ones first. I prioritize time with my wife and daughters, and my employees know that if they need time off to care for a sick child or watch a school play, it’s not a problem.
4. Be a Wellness Evangelist: Are you passionate about cooking, meditating, or painting? Be vocal about your interests and encourage your team to join you in pursuing them. I find incredible mental peace from yoga, so I decided to share my passion with my colleagues by scheduling regular in-office yoga classes. And guess what? They’re a hit!
5. Plan Team Volunteer Events: Giving back is a great way to make an impact on your community, your team dynamic, and your own outlook on life. Every quarter, our team organizes a fun volunteer opportunity to get everyone out of the office – we bond in new ways and always feel great afterwards.
6. Pursue Professional Growth: If you make an effort to promote development courses and opportunities – and to continually learn new skills yourself – your employees will follow suit. I arrange technical and leadership training opportunities for my team throughout the year, and encourage everyone to attend.
7. Take Time to Innovate: Empower your team members to spend 20% of their time on their own creative, innovative projects. While blocking that time may appear to slow you down, it will actually create a self-fulfilling cycle of improvements, which will ultimately make your team much more effective.
8. Flex Your Mental Muscles: Read – a lot! Read about topics that fascinate you to ensure that you are always learning and constantly exposed to new ideas and perspectives. I encourage my team to read as much as they can, and even gifted my leadership team copies of Rob Parson’s The Heart of Success: Making It in Business Without Losing It in Life. I read it once a year to reinforce my focus on work/life balance and swear by it!
Hopefully you can adopt some of these ideas for your own teams, champion a culture of wellness, and help make your company a healthy, happy, and engaging place to work.
Interested in living well at work? Salesforce is hiring! Learn more and find opportunities at salesforce.com/careers.
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