Introduction
At the start of this decade, the pandemic emerged; locked us in our homes and forced the world to come to an eerie standstill. In these trying circumstances, we attempted to juggle our lives at home with day-to-day challenges at work. However, with the pandemic extending over a year and more, amidst combating everything from computer fatigue, managing household chores, children and elders around boundaryless work schedules, we forgot to take care of ourselves. This silently took a toll on the physical and the emotional well-being of many of us in our workspace. Whether a part of upper management, mid-level, or fresher an imbalanced life situation has seen a significant upward trend. As people leaders, it had become critical for us to address this issue…
Our approach to capability development
At NextWealth, we believe in a holistic approach to people development. In simple words it means happy, healthy and steadfast employees combined with proper skill-development regime can positively impact productivity and performance. Our capability model is built around this approach and thus plays a crucial role in supporting our employees from the ground up.
- 200+ leaders participated in the NextWealth Inner Wellness Survey and more than 75% of them showed interest in bettering their mental, physical, and overall well-being.
- Our employees confronted a diverse set of problems, which impacted more than just their physical health. Some reported losing interest in most things, lack of sleep, worry, anxiety, restlessness, lower back pain, eye strain, and loss of appetite among other obstacles.
Working through the solution
The survey helped us formulate programs that would help employees feel better physically, and emotionally. Ensuring the focus was on overall physical and mental well-being, we introduced our leaders to an integrated yogic practice called “Dinacharya”. This 21-day program focussed on
- Pranayama (conscious breathing techniques)
- Asana (workouts for physical well-being)
- Simple meditative practices and
- Sharing tips on clean diet and lifestyle
The intention of this 21-day program was to encourage leaders to realise the health benefits that such a program brings and to ultimately make it a part of their daily routine.
The program had allowed for fluidity to accommodate deadlines and their lives at home. Employees were free to join 30-minute-long online sessions in the morning or evening. Seventy-five of our leaders signed up to the program. Many reported partial or complete relief in the issues they had been dealing with all alone. Some of them even introduced their family members to these programs to reap the benefits of holistic health.
After the first program’s success, we organized another insightful program called “Recode Your Life” for our senior leaders. This program was designed to upgrade the code that determines the way they live and lead; by adding more heart and humanity into the mix and with that, truly grow their inner well-being. This helped further improve their emotional health and many employees continued with the sessions.
The way ahead
At NextWealth, we consider inner wellness to be as important as physical wellness, and we want to drive the message that happy and healthy employees are productive employees. We are glad our initial programs were appreciated and those who attended them found that it positively impacted their lives. While we started these programs to help employees overcome the stress of the pandemic, we have come to learn that its benefits go way beyond relieving us from the pandemic stress.
At NextWealth, we are committed to inner wellness of our employees and aim to organize such programs in future to support them better, not just during the difficult times, but beyond it.