After the ball has dropped and the confetti has fallen, it’s time to look forward to 2020. More importantly, it’s time to think about New Year’s resolutions. After all, the start of the year is a great chance to set fresh goals. But studies show that over seventy-five percent of people end up breaking their resolutions after only 30 days! Keep reading to learn how you can make your employees’ resolutions a bit more achievable.
Why Are Employees’ Resolutions Important to You?
But first, you may be wondering why your employees’ resolutions are of any importance to you. If they’re hoping to eat healthier or travel more, why should you worry about whether they actually accomplish it? It doesn’t matter if your employees choose to target personal or professional development in their goals – you’ll be impacted.
A healthier employee is also a more productive, engaged, and committed employee. Furthermore, accomplishing a resolution can give someone a real boost of confidence, which carries over into their work and demeanor. Plus, many of the popular resolutions are based on improving one’s health. You can guarantee that an employee who accomplishes a goal like improving their diet or exercising more often will actually end up costing you less as a company in terms of sick days, better performance, and lower insurance costs. Encouraging and helping an employee will benefit both the company and the employee in the long run! So give your employees an extra hand and help them beat the New Year’s resolution statistics with these easy tips.
4 Ways to Help Your Employees Accomplish Their Resolutions
Create a Clear Goal-Setting Process
To actually achieve a goal, it’s important that employees understand exactly how they plan on doing so. Help your employees model their resolutions after similar goals you’ve already helped them set in the workplace. For example, most professional goals follow the SMART goal setting concept, meaning they’re Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based. When you apply those qualities to a goal, it’s much more digestible and therefore, more achievable. If you create a resolution, that’s broad or incredibly difficult to achieve, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Encourage employees to break down resolutions by time periods, specific measurements, or steps, which will help keep them on track longer, plus it will give them small senses of accomplishment, so they can see results and keep working hard. Email your employees a template that lists out the SMART goal characteristics so they can fill it in themselves, or take it one step further and host a lunch and learn to refresh them on setting SMART goals.
Emphasize a Social Atmosphere
Studies have shown that announcing your goals and receiving positive affirmation and encouragement can trick your brain into already feeling accomplished, thus making you less motivated to work on them. But instead of simply telling your employees to divulge their resolutions to their coworkers or managers, you should work to create a community that offers support and togetherness within your workplace. There’s a good chance that many of your employees will have similar resolutions, both professional and personal, and sharing them with one another can help hold employees accountable and give them fellow coworkers with whom they can share their failures and successes and get tips and tricks for how to stay on track.
For example, consider starting a book club for those hoping to read more often, weekly workout group for the employees who want to hit the gym, or a recipe sharing group for those trying to eat healthier. Plan and encourage employees to participate in office outings to drum up more socialization. Even small things like creating a space in your office where employees can take short breaks and chat together over healthy, office-provided snacks like fruit will help them stick to their resolutions and share them with coworkers! Having someone go at it with you makes your resolutions a million times easier to accomplish.
Bring in the Experts
It’s likely that you’re not a definitive expert on something like fitness, financial wellness, and other popular resolution topics. But fortunately, the experts are out there! The best thing you can do for your employees is to find them and bring them in, so they can share their secrets on the best ways for employees to accomplish their goals. A benefit like this is sure to excite employees who are hoping to keep their resolutions intact, especially if they’re starting to lose their enthusiasm or drive, as it will offer a fresh perspective and give them new motivation to keep going forward.
Give your employees the chance to meet one-on-one or ask questions afterward so they can get tailored advice.
Give Employees a Financial Hand
Some of the most common resolutions include things like “Eat healthier,” “Go to the gym more,” “Travel more,” “Learn a new language,” and “Pick up a new hobby.” While those are all very commendable resolutions to achieve, they have one thing in common. They can tend to have major cost implications. If an employee is hoping to go to the gym more, that will most likely entail a gym membership. Plus, items like apparel and equipment could eventually be needed. If an employee wants to visit new places in 2020, they’ll need to pay for transportation, accommodation, and day-to-day costs. Unfortunately, costs end up playing an important role for many in achieving their resolutions. And even if your company is in the position to offer, for example, a discounted gym membership, you’re still failing to include the employees whose resolutions have nothing to do with that.
That’s why a free perks and discounts benefit might be what you’re looking for. Not only can you offer a discounted gym membership, but you can also offer discounts on travel, food, and more. With a benefit like PerkSpot, you’re not taking any money out of your own company’s pocket. Better yet, you’re still managing to put money back into your employees’ pockets!
There’s a reason that more than seventy-five percent of people who set a New Year’s resolutions eventually give up. They’re hard! Dedicating an entire year to improving yourself can feel like a frightening endeavor to begin, but you can make it that much easier for employees by making your workplace more resolution-friendly. Urge employees to come up with a plan for how they want to achieve their goals, bond over their resolutions, learn from the experts, and give them an extra push in the right direction with a perks and discounts benefit that will help them save on the products and services they need to succeed!
