Here at YourCoach, our goal has been to transform the way companies approach workplace wellbeing – a mission crafted in response to a very critical need. According to SHRM via MetLife data, employee satisfaction with their benefits has been steadily declining over the last several years. What’s more, only 44% of employers believe their company provides a sufficient number of behavioral health programs for workers and their family members.
Employees are looking for a personal touch. They’re looking to be met with humanity and genuine care. No one understands that better than we do and it’s inspired us to continue bringing health and wellbeing coaching to some of the biggest workforces across the country, giving employees access to personalized health and wellness support through coaching and resulting in better physical and mental health outcomes.
Integrity is one of our most important values as an organization, which means not only have we provided our employees access to health & wellbeing coaching, but also we’re continuing to look for new ways to support them in and out of the workplace. Today, we’re introducing Mental Health Fridays – a new initiative meant to prioritize the health and wellbeing of our workforce.
What are Mental Health Fridays?
Mental Health Fridays mean that for one Friday per month, everyone at YourCoach is required to sign off and take the day to prioritize their mental health and wellbeing. Not only that, but we provide the team with health coaching-backed suggestions for how they can put their mental health first on these days – from walking meditations to spending time with their loved ones or even just catching up on sleep or cooking a nutrient-packed meal. Mental Health Fridays should look different for everyone. They’re meant to inspire introspection and encourage each and every person on our team to give themselves what they need, so they can show up better for their team, for their family, their friends and most importantly, for themselves.
Why are we introducing this initiative?
Working for a startup is never a 9-5, and we’re so grateful to also have team members who are deeply passionate about the work we’re doing to deliver better health outcomes for individuals across the country. And this means our colleagues definitely don’t treat their jobs like a 9-5 from our development team to our C-Suite. Sometimes, this means setting boundaries is hard (despite encouragement from our Director of Health Coaching Operations to make this a priority!).
Beyond just our team, this is a common issue our health coaches are actively working on with employees across our Industry Partnerships. Setting boundaries is tough and often compounded by factors from high-pressure work environments to hybrid work settings. It’s part of the reason why we’re experiencing a burnout epidemic that’s worsening every year. Health coaches work closely alongside employees to create boundaries between work and life outside the workpkace to help prevent stress from spiraling into uncontrollable burnout and affecting their performance at work.
At the employer level, introducing something like Mental Health Fridays is our way to remind our team that prioritizing their mental health and wellbeing is massively important. We’re not just focused on improving the health and wellbeing of the employees we work with throughout our Industry Partnerships, but we also look inwards at our very important YourCoach team.
We’re so grateful we get to do the work we do and help teams across the country achieve better health and wellbeing outcomes through health coaching (and if you’re an employer who’s interested in exploring how we can deliver health coaching to your employees, send us a note at team@yourcoach.health). That work wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of our incredible, global team.
We’d like to wrap up today’s blog with a massive thank you to our team for their continued creativity, diligence and commitment to our YourCoach mission. While we encourage the team to prioritize mental health and wellbeing every day we hope for Mental Health Fridays to be an important reminder of our commitment to YOU and your commitment to your own health, growth and success.