After having seen the first 2 actors of this game, which are the company and the leader, here we are with the 3rd: the employee. As expressed, 5 factors are correlated with well-being and are very present in the population: physical activity, sleep, nutrition, financial worries and childcare difficulties. Many publications exist on this subject, I will just illustrate the first 3 factors with some examples.
Physical activity (PA): 30' of physical activity (PA) per day makes you more efficient and allows you to think more clearly; it makes you more confident and improves your memory. A concrete example would be that PA increases serotonin which facilitates the transition from one sleep cycle to another. A lack of serotonin will make you aggressive and anxious.
Nutrition: Any nutritionist will tell you about the balance between foods, according to their own characteristics; namely that a sufficient protein intake has a beneficial effect on the body and on the quality of life; or more detailed, that vitamins B2 (e.g. nuts, green vegetables, calf's liver), B6 (e.g. nuts, bananas, avocados) and B12 (eggs, cheeses, fish) contribute to reduce fatigue.
Sleep (state of fatigue): recent studies have shown that the pre-frontal cortex - responsible for leadership activities (e.g. problem solving, reasoning, planning) - cannot function without good sleep and that after 17 to 19 hours of wakefulness, intellectual performance is equivalent to a blood alcohol level of 0.5 per thousand...
To answer the question of the previous paper, it becomes obvious that for the leader to create the best facilitating environment for his team, s/he must be at his best with his personal factors. The leader is therefore at the heart of the equation impacting the well-being of employees.
Let's start with the leader... but what if s/he doesn't believe in it...? yes, here is the second observation: often, with these programs, we first reach the people who believe in it, not necessarily those who need it the most...
Several avenues will be explored: motivating factors and barriers - what is done in Canada - the innovation curve - (avoid) dogmatism!
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