It’s no surprise that wellness awareness is on the rise in real estate and in property management in particular. It’s a tough gig to handle and there to date has been little support on HOW to handle it, for most of us we’ve been thrown in the deep end without any swimming skills so no wonder we feel like we’re barely staying afloat some days!
Thankfully there is now more conversation happening around burnout and overwhelm awareness and plenty of emerging strategies on how to create a more supportive and wellness-focused work environment.
The good news is that bringing some wellness into your office doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming, one of the strategies being implemented by businesses around the world is the ideal of Wellness Wednesday (although it doesn’t have to be a
Wednesday of course 😉
Here are some simple ideas that should be easy or low-cost to implement for your wellness day or integrate into your ongoing wellness program:
1. Get Sporty
Support your teams fitness and movement. Organise to attend a local sports or fitness class as a team.
2. Pot Luck
Focus on sharing and community - all bring in a healthy dish to share for morning tea or lunch.
3. Walk and Talk
Change it up and have a walking meeting instead of sitting in the office. Movement can create better flow and creativity in conversation.
4. Get Educated
Expand your education and collaborate with a local practitioner come to share knowledge (i.e. physio, PT, nutritionist).
5. It’s Mufti Day!
Embrace individual expression - range to wear casual clothes, or business casual if you’ll be client facing. You could even step this up to do themes (fun for the socials).
6. Step it up
Encourage movement by having a step challenge (see who can get the most steps on their device).
7. Gratitude Jar
Practice the power of gratitude and connection, have the team submit a note on someone they want to thank and what for and share with everyone, could also do this in a book to keep all the awesome things together.
8. Flexi Hour
Embrace flexibility and show appreciation by simply letting the team choose to finish an hour early or start an hour later, or take a longer lunch.
9. The classic coffee break
Encourage the benefits of actually taking breaks and arrange a coffee or lunch break, all together, not at your desk and no work talk.
10. Fruit Day
Encourage healthy eating and supportive nutrition, get a huge supply of all different fruits and healthy snacks to fill the office kitchen.
11. Cooking up a storm
Cultivate connection and expanding individual development by booking in a cooking class for your team
12. Get your Zen on
Utilise the benefits of breath work and movement, and get a yoga teacher to run a yoga class (or go to yoga class together.
13. Stretch and Breathe
Movement moves stagnant energy through the body. On the hour, every hour - everyone to pause, stretch and take some deep breaths, or at regular intervals throughout the day, notice the impact on your stress levels!
14. Gift houseplants
Gift small pot plants to each employee to care for in the office or at home, create a discussion around the fact plants need to be nurtured to survive and thrive (like us humans!).
15. Journaling challenge
Take an hour and some nice notebooks and spend some time journaling and planning (google journaling questions if you’re stuck). Journaling helps individuals to dissolve some of the stress in their minds.
16. Book a blow dry
If you look your best you feel your best! Show your appreciation and take the team to get their hair washed and styled (or get nails done together).
17. Community
Encourage the benefits of community involvement such as perspective and giving to others. See if there is a local community or charity project that you could volunteer your time to.
18. Book club
Buy the team a good mindset or health-related book to read at home and once a week get together to unpack the book, or create a quiet hour in the office to read at the same time.
19. Digital Detox Day
To reduce stress, overwhelm and comparison set a challenge to stay off social media all day and check in how it felt.
20. Meditation
Support the team to create mindfulness through meditation, purchase a mediation app subscription for the team (i.e. calm, headspace).
21. Change of scenery
If you have laptops take the team to a café to work for the morning for a different outlook. They say a change is as good as a holiday.
22. Play a game
Get the team some snacks and play a board game or team-building type game for an hour or two. Supports play and problem-solving.
23. Ask the team
Ask the team what they might like to do to bring some calm and health into the office, maybe there are healthy habits or hobbies they would like to share given the chance.
24. Mindset Meetings
Instead of the usual meeting on stats and work, run a meeting where you actually check in with each person asking what they are finding challenging right now, and create a supportive environment to offer non-judgmental support.
25. Level up your learning
Book in a lesson or webinar with an expert to improve your mental health, resilience, stress management, or time management - (I can help with that!)
I hope this guide gives you more inspiration to kickstart or level up your wellness initiatives in your office, and I'm sure you'll have many more ideas!
It's a great idea to seek feedback along the way from each team member to see how they enjoyed each one, and seek their input on what can be done to improve and add to the program as it evolves.
And congratulations to you on taking steps towards improving the wellness and mental health in our property management industry. There is much to be done ad this is a great start. Together we can #beattheburnout
