Employee Wellbeing Ideas from Event Experts
11 Employee Wellbeing Ideas from Event Experts
Boost morale with these tried-and-tested employee wellbeing ideas. Read tips to hosting the perfect initiative from Maximillion’s event-planning experts.
Looking for ideas on employee wellbeing initiatives? We’ve got you sorted, with this comprehensive list of employee wellbeing ideas – based on 35 years of experience in corporate event planning. From social activities built around positive wellbeing, to incorporating it into larger conferences, our 11 employee wellbeing ideas will help you support your staff.
Why workplace wellbeing strategies are important
Lots of companies are waking up to the importance of employee wellbeing. Not only does it impact your staff’s individual happiness, it’s also key to your overall business success. When your employees feel supported, values and healthy – physically and mentally they are more productive, engaged, and motivated.
Prioritising wellbeing policies can lead to reduced stress, lower absenteeism, and a more positive company culture, helping organisations cut down staff turnover and foster creativity.
Investing in employee wellbeing is a win-win, creating a thriving environment where everyone can perform at their best.
The rise of workplace wellbeing initiatives
At Maximillion, we’ve noticed our clients are increasingly thinking about their employee’s mental and physical wellbeing – both at the workplace and when planning events.
Whether that is through a day-long team meeting, a teambuilding event in a new city or a virtual session incorporated into the work day, our clients want to ensure that their staff (and the organisation) are looking after their mental and physical wellbeing.
With demand rising, our team has put together this list of staff wellbeing activities to help you build a positive culture within your workplace – and beyond!
#1 Wall Of Thanks
Everyone feels good after hearing “thank you”, but did you know that expressing gratitude has been shown to boost social connections too? And not just between the person saying “thank you” and the person being thanked, but it has ripple effects through entire groups. You can read the study here.
Bring this into the corporate world at your next event with a ‘Wall of Thanks’. This is were your delegates, guests and colleagues can leave notes of thanks to each other, or to the company, creating good vibes all round.
These are a few way to do this:
– Use a physical wall and get people to stick coloured Post-it notes of gratitude
– Use a temporary chalkboard, whiteboard or magnetic board where people can add their thank you notes.
– For more digital-focused companies, create a bespoke hashtag and stream notes on a virtual noticeboard
Don’t forget to share some of the comments or trending themes with your delegates during your post event wrap-up comms.
Your delegates, guests and colleagues are certainly going to enjoy an event where there is a real buzz and theme of gratitude throughout, and by installing a cost-effective “Wall of Thanks” you can be sure you’ll help create a positive event.
#2 Gamify The Experience
We’re a competitive bunch here at Maximillion (annoyingly, Tommy is usually the winner of most of our competitions). While it’s frustrating seeing Tommy take gold again, We’d definitely encourage everyone to try creating some real-life competition during your next event.
For example, try gamifying the delegate’s experience. Give each person a pedometer, with the challenge to record the highest number of steps throughout the event.
This is a great way to bring physical health into the equation, too. Walking outdoors is linked to reduced stress levels, so this could encourage your attendees to get out of the venue and soak up some natural light during their lunch break.
Incentivise those who aren’t as competitive as others, by having live leaderboards displayed around the venue – and by offering prizes or business rewards (give us a shout for some cracking suggestions).
#3 Breathing Workshop
Kick-off your conference or session with a guided breathing exercise. This will help to ground your delegates, allowing them to forget about the morning rush out of the house, that silly argument with their kids or the stress of getting to the venue.
Breathing workshops are hosted by a professional practitioner who will work with your delegates to help them discover the power of breath management. Breathing this way has lots of mental health benefits, and is a natural remedy to reduce stress levels and anxiety. It benefits overall physical well-being too.
The best bit is, it’s not just something that your employees will learn and forget about. They can take the newly developed skills away with them and weave it into their daily life.
#4 Quiet Spaces
Conferences, exhibitions and events are places where people come together to learn new things network, catch up with acquaintances and meet new people. They are busy environments, often loud and full of energy.
While this is a rich environment to learn and grow for some, it can be overwhelming for others. Especially for those who are neurodiverse or simply experience signs of stress and anxiety in busy places.
This is why we’ve started promoting quiet spaces at events. This should be a special room set aside for folk to retreat to if they feel overwhelmed or exhausted. These spaces promote mental wellbeing by giving people somewhere to recharge their batteries and take a break from the hustle and bustle of an event. It also provides an environment where people can focus on any pressing deadlines or calls, reducing workplace stress by giving them a chance to handle work commitments without losing a full day to the conference.
A quiet space is a much better option than losing delegates to their hotel room or the nearest coffee shop, and can boost people’s emotional wellbeing by reducing any guilty feelings they may have about having to disappear for an hour or two.
#5 Nutrition Workshops
Giving your employees a workshop centered around nutrition can have really positive wellbeing benefits. After all, what we eat and drink has a huge impact on our physical health, our energy levels and our happiness.
This staff wellbeing idea also gives your employees some time away from the usual day-to-day business strategy sessions. There’s more to it than suggesting a healthy diet and and avoiding junk food, of course. A good workshop will not only cover what to ear, how much to eat and when to eat, but also how this can benefit physical and mental wellbeing.
Workshops can run from 30 minute talks all the way through to a 2-hour long interactive session. If you don’t have time in your conference agenda for a full workshop, you could instead have a pop-up health stand that guests could attend at their own leisure.
#6 Guided Run
In our industry, we are lucky to be able to visit so many cities and towns throughout the UK (and sometimes further afield). One of our frustrations is that we often only see the inside of the venue or hotel we are working in.
To combat this, we have introduced an internal competition to see how many different locations our team can record a Strava run or walk in throughout the year.
We know that you and your delegates will likely share our frustration. That’s why we offer, and frequently suggest, guided runs around the city your event is being held in. You don’t have to be an athlete to take part in these runs, we offer different groups based on your delegates’ ability.
As well as being a unique and interesting way to check out a new city, physical activities can help to create healthier employees. We’re talking mentally as well as physically, because (as this study in Phycology Today explains) running can make the brain more resilient to stress.
There are lots of wellbeing benefits to getting natural light, too, with studies showing that it can improve alertness and reduce mental fatigue.
#7 Sober Friendly Events
Alcohol is often a big part of social interaction at work events, but it can be bad for employee performance and mental wellbeing. While alcohol can offer fleeting moments of relaxation and low inhibition, when it wears off it can damage our emotional wellbeing; leaving us feeling angry, depressed, or anxious.
Nobody wants to spend the day after a great event worrying about that weird thing they said to their boss!
We know running an event without alcohol may make you, as an event organiser, nervous. You’re probably wondering “No booze? What will the delegates this? What will the feedback be? What will be colleagues think?”
But take heart: low and no alcohol drinks are so in right now. Eventbrite conducted a survey which showed that 56% of 21-35 year olds in the UK & Ireland said they’d find events that offer zero-proof and low alcohol drink options appealing.
Additionally, a Portman Group survey conducted by YouGov found that 39% of 18-24 year olds don’t drink at all, and almost a quarter of drinkers have cut down on alcohol because there are so many great non-alcoholic alternatives available.
While cutting back on booze might seem like a bold choice, this is a staff wellbeing idea that can help to foster an inclusive culture and help your staff to make healthy choices. Use the budget that would usually sit behind the bar to decorate and theme your event. At Maximillion, we have more than 35 years experience in creating fun events that people still talk about years later. we can offer our expertise to help you create a memorable experience, without the horrid hangovers.
With show-stopping creativity and entertainment on your side, your delegates will quickly realise that getting tipsy would simply be a distraction from the fun.
#8 Walk & Talk
Nobody like being cooped up in a conference venue or hotel all day, and this staff wellbeing idea is to include some ‘walk & talk’ sessions in your agenda.
We begin these sessions with a plenary session, where a topic is introduced to the entire group before smaller breakout groups, usually of around 5 people, are created. These groups are encouraged to go for a walk around the venue grounds or the local city to discuss key aspects of the topic.
This is great for physical and mental wellbeing as it gets people moving, out into the natural light, and chatting with their fellow delegates.
Allow us to add some creative flair to your session by giving us the facts and figures you want your teams to discuss, and we will bring them to life in a fun and unique way.
We’ve previously paired Walk & Talk sessions with our Mobile Adventure product. Utilising technology and our app, we can create a bespoke route for each group which is detailed on their team iPad. The app is also used to capture group and individual feedback which is then shared with your organisation.
#9 Wellbeing Welcome Boxes
Being away from home can take its toll on mental health sometimes, so here’s an employee wellbeing idea to help everyone relax: leave a wellbeing-focussed welcome box in your guests’ and delegates’ hotel rooms. Maximillion can help you create beautiful boxes filled with goodies and home comforts to help your employees unwind, relax and look after their physical and mental wellbeing whilst they are away.
Our top piece of advice is not to get hung up over the budget of these boxes but instead focus on what you would like to include in them. We’ll do the hard work to source the best products as cost effectively as possible. We’re unique in that we create each box by hand, exactly the way you want it.
#10 General Wellbeing Workshops
If you want to cram as many employee wellbeing strategies as you can into one handy workshop, we would highly recommend including one of our General Wellbeing Workshops in your programme.
We work alongside a professional practitioner, and chat with you first to understand what your overall aims and objectives are for the session. From here, we can put together a bespoke workshop that your employees will truly benefit from – both in their work and personal life.
Your employees will leave with a wellbeing toolkit that they can deploy when needed. Because it’s based on your own workplace wellbeing ideas, each workshop we run is unique.
Not sure what to cover? Some key topics that you might want to explore include:
– Workplace stress management
– Anxiety management
– Better sleep
– Gut health
– Financial health
– Healthy foods
– Understanding menopause
#11 Creative Workshops
Everyone has their own ways of managing their personal, physical and mental wellbeing. One way to do that is by unleashing your creativity!
Our creative workshops have become super popular, in 2024, both in-person and online (deal if you want to inlcude remote employees).
One of the perceived restrcitions of a creative workshop is that you need to be ‘arty’ to enjoy it. We can speak from experience and state that you categorically do not – most of our team haven’t got any art skills, and these sessions are always a hit when we run them internally!
We have a full catalogue of creative workshops for you to choose from. These incude:
– Art Skills
– Flower Arranging
– Wreath Making
– Gingerbread House Making (especially for Christmas!)
