Introduction: Workplace wellness programs are often deployed to help make a positive impact on health and productivity, but this impact is best realized if employers and wellness providers are successful at creating a culture of health. Uncertainty and turbulence in the work environment have been reported since the mid 1990’s (Webster & Cowart, 1999). Since a culture of health is not a “one-size-fits-all” solution and may differ from workplace to workplace, nurse leaders are best poised to lead more effectively once they have mastered leading themselves. It’s important recommendations are led and provided regarding the key items that can impact culture, from choosing the right incentives to utilizing communication to including disease management and coaching. This project discusses the purpose, deciding factors, and benefits to developing a culture of health within an organization through six integral dimensions of self or wellness bundle. This bundle is meant to build on each other to lead to the overall outcome of self-leadership in wellness. This bundle comprises of; 1) self-care; 2) self-awareness; 3) self-reflection; 4) self and the art of listening; 5) self and the art of communicating; and 6) self and the art of collaborating (McNulty, 2015 & Watson, 2012).
Background: Traditionally programs that focus on building healthy cultures seek to reverse health issues caused or worsened by traditional workplace cultures that fail to consider and sometimes devalue the well-being of employees. These problems often manifest themselves as health risks and chronic health conditions, which can become costly reminders of an unhealthy culture. One study found 22.4 percent of annual costs for a group of employers came from ten common health risk factors (Goetzel et al., 2012). These risk factors and conditions lead to billions in spending and are routinely cited as the leading causes of death in the United States. A workplace focused on providing a healthy culture for its employees can help drive employee engagement to actively lead improvement in their health or address any health conditions, both of which would ultimately mitigate health risks and associated costs.
To achieve a healthy workplace culture, it is important to first understand the persons and their needs, desires, and interests. Implementing a workplace wellness program without this information is counterproductive and may result in the implementation of an award-winning program better suited for a different organization. Decisions may be made before defining expectations and how success will be measured. For instance, a successful workplace wellness program can mean more than achieving a financial return on investment (ROI). A positive value of investment (VOI), frequently less often cited as a determining factor to implement a wellness program, is an important result to consider. The VOI may be equally as important as ROI, especially when it comes to achieving an engaged, healthy and thriving workforce. By establishing the goal of cultivating a healthy workplace culture and then taking action through leadership ensures the best opportunity to realize the advantages of a wellness program initiative.
Nurses are called to lead others in academic and practice settings daily. The journey to self-leadership is one tool to support growth and development to master self-leadership dedicated to self-care though a focus on mind, body, and spirit.
Methods: A nursing satisfaction survey and burnout tool identified areas the six areas for improvement in a multi-site setting. A bundled model was created using an A3 methodology of a nursing self-driven leadership model with an action plan, interventions and target state. Models of self-healer, personal enrichment and self-care plan are examined and demonstrate how they reduce burnout, improve professional satisfaction, and personal health improvement components.
Implementation: The combination of a wellness bundle comprises of; 1) self-care; 2) self-awareness; 3) self-reflection; 4) self and the art of listening; 5) self and the art of communicating; and 6) self and the art of collaborating and healthy life strategies were implemented and journaled by nursing participants.
Results: A twenty question Likert scale survey pre and post wellness bundle implementation was completed at six months and at 1 year. All participants completed the three evaluations. An improvement was demonstrated in 18 of the 20 queries with a significant improvement in; 1) quality of life; 2) sleep; 3) personal fulfillment; 4) achievement of health goal; and 5) emotional well-being. The data set compromised from 3 work sites, 3 levels of nursing education and (n=32) A chi-squared test was used to analyze data for all questions. The data revealed statistically significant improvement in all levels of nurses across the three work sites equally.
Conclusions: Developing self-leadership wellness strategy suggests there is a strong link between a healthy professional workplace culture and improved health and professional well-being. Developing a healthy culture is best accomplished when self-care is identified as an important factor in dealing with interpersonal relationships, and influences the work process and health of workers. This innovative nursing peer driven wellness bundle demonstrates positive outcomes and replicability interprofessionally for comparable engagement, professional development, wellness and data monitoring to demonstrate change and measure responses.