Employee Wellness: Tips for Healthy Living

With busy schedules and lifestyles, keeping the mind, body and soul healthy can be a major challenge. Securitas would like to offer these tips to help everyone live a happy, healthy, safe and balanced life:

• Get Physical – Exercise not only helps you build muscle, lose weight and gain self-confidence, but it's vital in maintaining a healthy heart. And, don't think you need to spend hours at the gym to achieve a new physical you. From strength training and cardio workouts, to walking the dog or taking the stairs – anything that gets your heart pumping will benefit your health.

• Stress is a Mess – Over time, stress can lead to serious health issues such as obesity, depression and even death. Wellness experts suggest that when you start seeing red, instead think blue – as in blueberries. Antioxidants found in the tasty fruit fight stress hormones. Also, don't forget to breathe. Inhaling a deep breath for 5 seconds then exhaling for another 5 seconds can help clear your mind and enhance blood circulation.
• LOL, Laugh Out Loud – Build your immune system through laughter! Health-increasing hormones like endorphins are released into your body when you laugh. Additionally, laughter works your abdominal muscles.
• Eat Healthy – We know we should eat healthy, choose the ideal proportions or foods and food groups to eat according to your body size and structure.  For more information, please reference Canada's Food Guide.

• Get Plenty of Zzzzzz's – Between work, family and extra activities, it's sometimes difficult to get the necessary 6 to 8 hours of sleep per night. Be sure to avoid caffeine or exercise right before bed. Instead, try reading a book or mediating.

• What's Up, Doc? – Going to the doctor only when you're sick isn't going to cut it. For both your physical and mental well-being, it's wise to have a routine annual physical examination. Especially if your family has a history of health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure, getting regular check-ups can help prevent or detect serious health issues.

• Yoga-tta Do It – Yoga, an ancient practice of stretching and breathing techniques, has become a popular exercise for both men and women. In addition to releasing positive energy, yoga prevents injuries, promotes flexibility and can add relief to a stressful day.
• The Right to Recreation – You schedule meetings and appointments each week, so why not schedule time for recreation? Be sure to set time each week for activities you enjoy. Whether it's dinner with family and friends, or taking the phone off the hook and curling up with a good book, be sure to block out time on your calendar with activities that you enjoy and will rejuvenate you.

Learn Proper Work Email Etiquette, Today

What is proper email etiquette while at work?

Ask yourself two questions when preparing a work email. First, “Is it inappropriate?” and second, “Will it offend anyone?” If you can answer yes to either or you are not sure then err on the side of caution and do not click that send button.

The best rule is always use a common sense approach to email then you will not have anything to worry about. In this day and age of social media and digital technology keep your professional and private lives separate. If you would never say it to someone's face then do not send it to their email! 

In this issue:

• What is email etiquette?
• "I deleted it, but is it really gone?"
• Learn clear and concise communication skills

Continue reading...

Develop Effective and Devoted Employees

Far too often we look to client relations to fix client issues rather than employee relations. Don't get me wrong, client relationship building is extremely important, but so are the relationships we need to build with our employees. As a Branch Manager you may get to see your client once or twice a month but your employees see him or her every day. This means that how well your employees feel about the company, and their manager will more than likely get passed on directly or indirectly to the client. So the more effectively we engage, recognize and manage our employees will help you in the work you do to improve your client relationships.

Engaging people starts with onboarding and how we bring them into the company, because it helps people to understand their role in the organization and where they fit in. If they do not feel like they fit in, then they question their ability to fit at all.

You need to show your employees, you care. It's not enough to just provide them with a job, employees need to recognized, validated and appreciated for the value and drive they bring. It is imperative that we ask ourselves, "How do we engage our employees who have allowed us to get to the point we are right now." One way is to provide continuous learning throughout their careers with Securitas. Organizations that enjoy high retention of employees establish learning development plans for their employees and mentor them through the learning, to ensure understanding of the material.

It's important that you have open and honest discussions with your employees especially when it comes to your expectations, their performance and the feedback you provide. Good coaching and counselling can go a long way to help improve engagement in an employee, and allow them to grow as a valued member of your team.

All too often managers find themselves spending most of their time fixing issues created by about 8% of their workforce and have little time to look at the other 92% who are doing an excellent job. However, to keep employees engaged we need to ensure that we recognize the excellent work the other 92% do or they will see that the only way to get recognized is to become part of the 8%. Recognizing an employee does not need to have a monetary value to have a great impact. A personal phone call, handwritten thank-you note, email announcement, nomination to Guard of the Year or acknowledgement during a team meeting can go a long way to make this person feel appreciated and engaged.

Learning to create a team of engaged employees will help you to stabilize your team and send a message indirectly through your employees that Securitas is a good organization and one the client can be proud to be partnered with.

By Warren Young
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Warren Young is the National Director of Training at Securitas Canada.

Securitas has been providing security services since 1934. With over 7,000 people in Canada and 310,000 people globally we have the experience and knowledge to offer a broad range of Security services; including On Site Security Guard Services, Mobile Guarding, Remote Guarding, Technology Solutions, Corporate Risk Management and Investigations.

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