Office spaces are starting to reopen.

Are you ready?

The pandemic restrictions are starting to ease in many places around the world, allowing workers to start returning to their former office lives.

Here are four top suggestions on how to keep your overall wellness in check as you move through this upcoming shift in work locations.

1. Talk it Out

As they say, communication is the best policy.

From feeling anxious about your return due to COVID-19, struggling to find child care or simply preferring to stay home a little longer, these are all subjects you can bring up to your manager before your return.

Clearing the air of upcoming uncertainty will lead to solutions to help you focus on making the best transition.

Articulate your needs as an employee or employer to ensure a smooth workplace return and set clear expectations.

As the new normal sets in, don’t hesitate to reach out to coworkers and managers to review new office policies in this post covid world.

The more information you gather in advance, the better!

2. Find Balance Between Work & Home

Working from home allowed you to always know where everyone in your family was and what they were up to, but this will change when you start back in the office.

Communicate with your family about the demands and schedule of your new role working out of the house, along with the responsibilities of home life.

This will be an adjustment for everyone after having very little activity outside of the home.

Like any transition period, both the support of your family as well as the support you provide to them during this time of change will be essential.

3. Focus on Wellness

You’ll want to prioritize your wellness during this time of change.

Overall, this is maintained through exercise, healthy eating, sleep and mindfulness practices.

Being aware of taking care of your mental and physical health will help keep stress away.

Each day, get your body moving for at least 30 minutes – run, walk, do yoga or swim.

Carve out this time and make it happen.

Eating well will boost your immune system as you begin to be around more people at the office. 

Turning screens off earlier and striving for a good 7-8 hours of sleep per night will increase your quality of sleep. 

Mindfulness can be practiced in many different ways- yoga, meditation and breathing exercises.

Adding one of these to your daily routine will pay off for your body and mind.

Reach out to Innergy Corporate Yoga to help cultivate a back to work wellness program for your team.

4. Visit the Office

The power of imagery can help you fend off anxiety and cope with upcoming stressful situations.

If you need to take it further, you could schedule a time to come into the office before the official opening.

This will allow you the time necessary to set up your desk area and get your head back into being in the office.

Dust off your keyboard, check your supplies and plan on adding a new plant to make the place feel more like home.

Get your work space back to the way it was before Covid.

It’s good for your mental health to be in a clean and organized environment.

Welcome to Innergy Corporate Yoga’s new Interview Series: Spotlight on Wellness.

Each month we’ll share what top Human Resource and Technology leaders from US & Canadian companies are doing to take care of business, themselves and their teams.

#1 Name: Jon Fowkes, General Manager
Company: Signode – Toronto, ON
Website: https://www.signode.ca/
# of Staff (in Canada): 80
How long with company? 3 years

1) How and why is employee wellness important to your company? 

“Employee wellness is important to our company and it’s extremely important to me personally. It’s not healthy for people to sit at desks all day, we need to move our bodies so they don’t tighten up. It’s important for us to encourage mobility with our employees. We’ve offered yoga in the past and we encourage people to get up, stretch and move.”

2) How and why is saving money important to you & your company? 

“Saving money is a driver for any company. Investing in activities like yoga or stretching for your team are offset by your team then having less stress. You can reduce your company’s medical bills by helping people get physically stronger and more active and by changing everyone’s mindsets. People then become more aware of their bodies, they choose better diets and more. This can all lead to cost savings for a business.”

3) What wellness programs or resources do you currently offer your staff? 

“We use a program called Manulife Vitality. This program encourages healthy living. We do challenges quite often – things like exercise, water consumption etc. We use a point system and staff can win prizes. The last prize was an apple watch.”

4) How has your company saved money by implementing wellness strategies? 

“Changes that any company make will take time but we believe we will see these savings down the road. Most of our health initiatives are relatively new, about six months before the pandemic started. We probably haven’t saved a lot of money yet but I know we have a more motivated workforce. Programs like corporate yoga attract people to work here. Cost savings is important to us, but having a healthy workforce is even healthier.”

5) What obstacles and challenges are you still working on? 

“Getting our staff involved in all of these activities has been our biggest challenge. Some staff members are into wellness and love it, others are not at all. And then we have some people in the middle who just aren’t sure how to get started. We want to help those people in the middle to feel comfortable enough to come to things like yoga. Now that we are remote due to the pandemic, this is our biggest challenge. Coming out of the pandemic we hope to get more people involved in our programs and onsite activities.”

6) What do you do to stay healthy & well yourself? What advice can you give to others?

“I’ve learned a lot from the gym I go to – about stress, exercise, diet, etc. I’m at the gym every morning at 630 am. Working out helps me to forget about everything and release stress and pent up energy. I also manage my stress. If I let stress get to me I’d be in a home somewhere right now, and I would run the company much differently if I were not managing my stress levels.”

#2 Name: Martin Ahlijanian – VP of Contracts (at Altru)
Company: Altru (recently sold to ICIMS) – Boston, MA
Website: www.icims.com
# of Staff: 1000+
How long with company? 6 months

1) How important is employee wellness to your company? 

“On a scale from 1-10, employee wellness is about a 9 for me. Years ago I messed up my back with hockey and I was in a lot of pain. After just one yoga session (at my past employer), my back was 80% better.” 

2) What wellness programs or resources do you currently offer your staff? 

“The company doesn’t offer much per se but they do outsource HR/benefits to a company – they’re very good. We share links to YouTube videos for exercise, yoga etc to our team.” 

3) What obstacles and challenges are you still working on? 

“We’re still working on formalizing some sort of wellness program. We’d like to find a cost effective partner. But that’s in the future; we’re not looking at anything right now.”

4) What is the best advice you’ve gotten from someone on the topic of wellness? 

“Many things – get to the gym, be active, don’t sit too much (sitting is the new standing) and be consistent in the things you do and the choices you make. Make an investment in something like a treadmill or a gym membership – you definitely won’t regret it.”  

#3 Name: Sandy Nagel – Executive Director of HR
Company: Porter Pipe & Supply – Addison, IL
Website: www.porterpipe.com
# of Staff: 215
How long with company? 7 months

1) How important is employee wellness to your company? 

“Wellness is very important now given all the changes happening in the world with the pandemic. Mental health is more important than ever before.” 

2) How have you & your team been affected by COVID-19? 

“We are an essential business, so we never stopped working. We had to make a lot of adjustments when COVID-19 hit. Some staff began working from home and we had to communicate constantly with the team about any changes we were making. The safety of our team is of the utmost importance to us. We are also proud that we did not furlough any staff members. We are a tight team, and everyone has a sense that we belong here. Our team members found a lot of support from upper management.” 

3) What wellness programs or resources do you currently offer your staff? 

“We have had different wellness seminars since covid. Our latest seminar had a big focus on mental health – how to identify risk factors, how to have a conversation with a team member on topics like depression or anxiety and coping with all the changes due to covid. We recently had a team member pass away, so we had offered our team a seminar on how to cope with the emotions associated with this loss.

At other companies I have worked at, we have offered apps for meditation and sleep, Zumba, yoga. Here at Porter, we even have a gym on site.”

4) In your opinion, what is the one thing that many people in your position might miss? 

“You have to shift your mindset. It goes way beyond just giving staff a day off. You have to offer them tools and resources and you must make those resources readily available. It goes way beyond the old school mentality of just offering a good benefits package. We have to ask ourselves ‘What are employees really attracted to? What do they really want?’ We also support causes we believe in, like the Special Olympics and Marklund. Being part of a charitable cause helps us to create a partnership with our community and to build a better society. This involvement in community outreach enriches our culture and is also attractive to new hires.”

5) Crystal ball: What does YOUR next level of success look like in this arena? 

“Our next goal is to have a comprehensive total rewards program. We want a customized menu that employees can build according to their own needs – what areas they want to work on and their needs and goals. I envision giving people time during the day to do breathing exercises, to unplug for a while, take a class like Zumba, Yoga, Pilates, or Meditation. We want to give the team opportunities that are fun and engaging so they feel appreciated and happy.” 

#4 Name: Glenn Block – Principal PM Lead
Company: Microsoft – Seattle, WA
Website: www.microsoft.com
# of Staff: a lot
How long with company? Almost a year this time (and first time prior with company 8 years)

1) How and why is employee wellness important to your company?

“Employee wellness is very important to me. We get several wellness days each year that we can use as we please. The company really encourages people to take the time off that they need.”

2) How have you & your team been affected by COVID-19?

“We’ve had a lot of fatigue with all of our online meetings. I’ve worked remotely before but this is pretty much 100% remote now. It makes it tough for onboarding new team members. I’m impressed with Microsoft’s response to the pandemic. We’re doing things now like shorter meetings, walking meetings, etc.” 

3) What wellness programs or resources do you currently offer your staff?

“We get an amazing fitness reimbursement of $1200 a year. We can use this money for skiing, a gym membership, yoga, etc. I personally use it for rock climbing, one of my passions. We often do meditation at work. I think we had yoga before covid too. We have interesting speakers, employee resource groups and more. There is no shortage of interesting discussions here at Microsoft. We also do things now like play online games with the team. ‘Two Truths and a Lie’ is a current favorite.”

4) In your opinion, what is the one thing that many people in your position might miss? 

“If you invest in wellness it’s better for both the employees and the company. People appreciate the company more. It’s not just about a salary; offering wellness programs boosts morale and it pays off. I even tried yoga for the first time during COVID-19 – I love Savasana.”  

#5 Name: Dana Hawthorne –Founder & CEO
Company: Modernize – Denver, CO
Website: www.modernize.io
# of Staff: just him
How long with company? 6 months

1) How and why is wellness important to you? 

“Health and wellness is paramount to me. If you have a healthy body you have a healthy mind. So many people just work and they lose track of time, they don’t set time and resources aside to be healthy. I have a home gym myself and I work out all the time. I also ride my bike and ski. I’m pretty fit and healthy.”

2) What wellness programs or resources do you currently offer your staff? 

“It’s just me and a handful of contract staff, so we don’t currently offer much of anything. At my last company though each employee received $100 a month to use toward things like a gym membership – this was partially discounted through an insurance plan. 

In the future we would like to offer our team wellness benefits.”

3) In your opinion, what is the one thing that many people in your position might miss? 

“Listen to your team, listen to your staff. Ask them questions, build programs around the humans in your team. Culture drives those things. These changes are driven by organized leadership.”

4) Crystal ball: What does YOUR next level of success look like in this arena? 

“In the future we will be looking at corporate wellness programs for our team members. When our company is more mature we’ll be able to offer more programs for our staff.” 

Join us for yoga sessions & more for busy office workers this month.

Find more information on our Facebook page.

Friday, June 4th – 10am EST/ 7am PST     30 minutes    Hatha Yoga with Anu

Thursday, June 17th – 3pm EST / 12pm PST    20 minutes    Chair Yoga with Lynn

BENEFITS

Opens and stretches tight back muscles, releases tension in shoulders, chest, arms and neck, facilitates deeper breathing, improves circulation to upper body, including heart and lungs, reduces overall stress, increases energy and more.

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1: Sit slightly forward on your chair, legs at a 90° angle, feet flat on the floor.  Contract your abdominal muscles, roll your shoulders back and down, and lift your chest up.

Step 2: Reach your right arm forward, then bend your right arm and reach your right hand up, forming a 90° angle with the right arm.  Reach your left arm underneath your right arm, and turn your palms to face each other, pressing them together as best you can. Squeeze both arms together.

Step 3: Keeping both arms squeezed together in this position, lift your elbows up toward the sky as high as they will comfortably go.  Stay here for 3-5 breaths, breathing deeply in and out of your upper/mid back area.  Relax your shoulders and facial muscles.

Step 4: To release, take one last inhale, and as you exhale, release both arms and place your hands on your thighs.  Shake out your arms and breathe normally.

Step 5: Repeat on the other side, switching hand positions.

What is Virtual Corporate Yoga anyway?

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