Health coaching in the workplace can help to transform not only individual lives but the company culture as a whole. Helping people to achieve personal wellness goals at work can help them to feel personally connected to the organization. By turning the focus away from the bottom line as the final goal, impact and staff engagement become the indicator. This allows for a new or reintroduced program to become a collaborative mission for all, where employees become supported people. It’s easier for employees to feel engaged at work when they are able to be confident that their company cares about their personal wellbeing.

Here are three ways that health coaching can improve employee engagement.

1. Enhancing Workplace Culture

Workplace wellness has the capacity to transform a company environment from one of stress and anxiety to one of support and flow, but to achieve this, management and staff investment is critical. Management needs to communicate the benefits of having a health coaching offering in order for the rest of the staff to get on board. Focusing on individual goals within the sense of a collective group acts as a great leveling agent.

Workplace sponsored coaching and wellness programs bring opportunities for personal connections across departmental and seniority lines.

Executive staff down to entry level staff are unified in their pursuit of better health. This unity can also presumably be translated to better teamwork in the future.

2. Reducing Absenteeism 

As employees receive personalized coaching, they better learn how to manage and even surmount health issues. This leads to a reduction in the days they will be absent from work. Absenteeism numbers lessen due to involvement, while motivation gets a boost. Less days missed equal more days that your employees are fully present, productive, and engaged at work.

In order to maximize this potential, if possible, it is best if companies can offer open enrollment in their health coaching program. Health coaching tends to fail when it is offered to employees at the wrong time. Companies often adhere to strict enrollment periods for health coaching that coincide with health insurance open enrollment. The problem with that approach is that a person may not need health coaching at the time of enrollment, but something could happen mid-year that would change that need.

3. Building Personal Connections

Health coaching is a very personal process, so do what you can to ensure that your employees can find a coach who is a good fit. It’s most valuable to have two, three or more coaches available for employees, as different personalities mix better with certain coaching styles and backgrounds. Because of the relational aspects that come along with health coaching, consistency is key. Try to make sure that your staff who participate in health coaching are guaranteed to get the same coach every time.

As trust grows, your staff members may be more confident to communicate with their coach than with a general survey that asks for feedback on the program. Staff who are making progress on their health goals with the benefit of a personal coach are likely to be more engaged at work, because not only are they investing their energy and effort into the company, the company is doing the same thing for them.

Wellness leads to engagement. 

Health coaching, done right, is a mutually beneficial benefit offering for both employer and employee. It has the potential to greatly enhance your organization by increasing employee engagement thanks to the support system it creates. As your employees grow in their personal health, the collective health of the organization grows. An added bonus is that health care costs drop when employees engage in workplace wellness. When your other staff members witness the successes of their colleagues participating in the coaching offerings, you can anticipate the momentum of that program increasing, along with your employee engagement.

 References

 Can health coaching increase employee engagement? --https://www.employeebenefitadviser.com/opinion/can-health-coaching-increase-employee-engagement

 Employers look to wellness coaches to create, maintain healthy workforce -- http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/00010101/NEWS03/305229997/Employers-look-to-wellness-coaches-to-create,-maintain-healthy-workforce

 How Health Coaching Transforms Workplace Wellness -- https://coachfederation.org/blog/index.php/7110/