How would it be to have a Chief Wellness Officer Within Your Business? Workplace wellness is as important as deriving business profits

At a time when the Indian entrepreneurial sector is witnessing cut-throat competition considering the sheer number of startups that are mushrooming, there is bound to be competition even within these startups as well potentially leading to a scenario wherein employees are not able to manage workloads and are stressed even by the mere mention of tasks requiring extra efforts.

Now, from a psychological viewpoint, the whole atmosphere within workplaces (startups in this case) is to blame; this is supposed to be motivational and most often than not leads to scenarios wherein employees are abused for not being able to meet deadlines; thus leading to volatility and unhappiness within. Hence, the need of the hour is a positive change which could lead to people actually learning how to deal with challenging circumstances; and the foremost step to achieve this would be to have them open up.

In this regard, Entrepreneur India sought to check out if there were positive movements working towards creating happy workplaces, and interacted with Mukund Trivedy (and a multitude of workplace wellness experts) who recently launched HyWe Happy Workplace that aims at identifying toxic workplace survivors and empower them with positivity so that they succeed at corporate levels.

Initiating conversation with "unhappy" employees is key

HyWe, a movement, is currently in its second edition; the movement went live during February this year in Delhi; the second edition conclave of HyWe was recently held in Bangalore.

HyWe is aimed at getting employees, facing workplace issues such as abuses by superiors, dealing with comparatively excess workload being dumped upon them, and even psychological problems such as workplace depression, suicidal tendencies; to speak out so that proper platforms are accorded to infuse positivity and thereby potentially introduce liveliness while at work.

"People do not openly talk about workplace toxicity. Proportion of workers at high risk of suicide due to unmanaged stress has grown from 2-4% in 2014 of all counselling cases to 8% in 2018," states Trivedy to Entrepreneur India.

Trivedy's statement emphasizes the need to analyse employees for potential issues and have them initiate constructive dialogue. Trivedy states that his approach here would be to empower people to deal with stress, rather than have them run away from problems, so that they could excel at tasks at their corporate environments.

"I hope HyWe will achieve what Padman did for menstrual hygiene," adds Trivedy.

Achieving toxic-free workplaces; how could you achieve it?

"When you design a Great Workplace try to make it sound sexy like Marvel angels. It becomes aspirational and millennials relate easily to aspirational, cool and sexy," states Sangeeta Chacko – Head of Corporate Communications at Percept Media; at a panel discussion during the 2nd edition of HyWe events held at Bangalore.

"Companies must understand why people are with you, what they want and then align collective aspirations to business goals," added Leza Parker who is a Singapore-based entrepreneur and CEO at SC Beauty Network Pte Ltd that is now present in 17 countries. Parker is also an angel investor with over 20 investments.

Hence, it becomes imperative for you (as a new CEO of a startup) to in fact infuse positivity amongst your employees holistically. The key is to treat employees as humans, and not resources; an aspect echoed by the contributors above.

Job-quakes are catching up

Now, at a time when the threat of automation is looming large over Indian corporates, it only becomes imminent that the remaining of your workforce be treated with dignity and respect.

"People managing sensor based management system and inferior jobs are set to go out. 70% of retail jobs would vanish in the next 8-10 years," stated Harish Bijoor – Brand Guru and Founder at Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.

Bijoor also emphasizes that you should invariably lead with ethics and clean practice branding in this evolving and challenging work scenario.

A Chief Wellness Officer is the need of the hour

As new-age entrepreneurs, leading teams, it should do you no harm to nominate (even appoint) a Chief Wellness Officer within your organization; you are welcome to lead the way here.

"66% of workforce will be millennials by 2020. They need a workplace that is home away from home," re-iterated Bina Mirchandani – Happiness Mentor.

Finally, with driving smart change being a key criterion for entrepreneurs now, time is now ripe for you to initiate the wellness movement within.