5 Things to Consider Before Adding Yoga to Your Workplace Wellness Program
Recently I had the opportunity to offer video-based yoga classes to employees of my former employer. It was a great experience for both the company and for myself. Although I’ve been teaching yoga for a few years, this was my first foray into real-time video instruction. Many companies offer workplace wellness programs that include gym memberships and other activities. If a yoga program isn’t in your offering yet, read below for 5 things to consider before you move forward.
Workplace Wellness
Let’s first note what is meant by employee or workplace wellness. As defined by Wellsteps. “An employee wellness program includes any activity designed to support better health at work and/or to improve health outcomes. These programs often include medical screenings, incentives, behavior change interventions, fitness programs, social support or competitions.”
Yoga can be a great addition to a workplace wellness program because of the many benefits it brings including:
Calming body and mind
Helping with focus
Improving balance and flexibility
Bringing awareness to the breath
Collaboration/ Integration with employees across the organization
Bringing a yoga program into your company can be accomplished a number of different ways: providing access to an on-line program, in-office instruction, passes to local studios, or real-time video just to name a few. The question is, what’s the best way to offer yoga to your employees? The answer depends on a number of factors. Let’s talk about 5 that I think are most important.
Five things to consider
What is your goal? If you want to include a yoga program just to round out your wellness offering, then the path you take may look different than it would if employees or executive management are inquiring. For example, with a desire to round out the program, you may offer a subscription to one of the many on-line yoga programs. In this case, employees can decide if they want to participate and have flexibility to take classes whenever and wherever they chose. But perhaps your organization wants all employees to participate on a periodic basis. In that case, you may want to offer in office or real-time video classes.
Where are your employees located? No matter what your goal is, a key factor in participation will be the location of your employees. Do you have a workforce that is in one building? Or are there multiple buildings on the same campus or in multiple locations? Road warriors or work from home? All employees want to be given the same opportunity. Don’t make the mistake of offering a yoga program in the main corporate location that leaves out remote employees.
What are the job types? Looking at the breakdown of job types will also help you determine the best yoga program to offer. A company with more than 50% of their employees on the road may want to offer a subscription to on-line yoga classes vs. one that has the majority of employees at their desks in one location. Work schedules are also important to look at. If you’d like to hold periodic yoga classes in the corporate office, consider whether early morning or lunch time would fit best with work schedules.
Is your communication style in-person, phone, or video? How does your company communicate best? Are the executives hosting web video calls or do you have in-person meetings? Consider how comfortable your employees are with technology especially if you decide to host a real-time yoga class via video. Another consideration is the stability of the platform you are using. Anyone who has spent time fiddling with video (in a conference room for example) knows what I’m talking about!
Will executive management participate? As with any program, it’s important to have the buy-in and participation from executives. Employees tend to join when they see the boss engaging. Executive buy-in adds credibility and shows that the organization is serious and committed to that program. This is especially true if you have a class in house or via video where employees will see executives participating.
Building a yoga program for your organization
Once you have thought about these questions and are ready to design something for your organization, consider a few more items.
Let’s say your organization has a lot of remote/work-from-home employees that are in different time zones. You would like to offer a real-time yoga class that will serve 2 purposes: promote wellness and get remote employees engaging with one another. Consider a video-based class that can be recorded. Consider the best time to offer the class that will get maximum participation but not interfere with work schedules. In the program I did with a former employer, we offered 15-minute morning yoga using Cisco Webex.
If most of your employees are in one or two locations you might offer quarterly in-office yoga. Maybe this class is combined with other wellness offerings where each program is 15 or 20 minutes (think yoga, massage, meditation, nutrition tips) held during the day. Depending on your workforce your might want to offer a class by department during a staff meeting.
In the case of “road warrior” employees (like sales staff) include a yoga class during a sales conference or kick-off. Yoga instructors in each locale could work with those employees to build the appropriate program. Programs are flexible and could be in-person or via video.