This article originally appeared in the Cincinnati Business Courier, July 2020.

It’s safe to say that 2020 has been a challenging year. We’re facing a global pandemic, political division and civil unrest as society collectively uncovers biases and reacts to inequality at unprecedented levels. All of these are impacting employees’ financial, physical, mental and emotional health — and in fact, they may be facing some of these challenges on a more personal level than you’re aware of as a manager or colleague.

Building a well-rounded wellness program

How you treat your employees in times of difficulty greatly impacts their loyalty. We all want to work at a company where we feel respected and supported. One way you can offer this to your employees is through a robust wellness program.

Wellness programs should be comprehensive, focusing not just on physical health, but on mental health and team effectiveness as well. So often we see wellness programs framed as gym discounts and physical health screenings — and these are certainly important, but there’s so much more we should be doing for our people.

Self-awareness

Providing support for your employees begins with encouraging them in their self-awareness journey, ideally through a comprehensive self-discovery tool such as the Enneagram. The Enneagram describes nine distinct patterns (or types) of thinking, feeling and behaving.

Other systems that help you understand yourself have strictly psychological orientations that measure behavior, but that’s only one aspect of self-awareness. I choose to use the Enneagram in my coaching practice because it considers not just the psychological orientation, but also the spiritual and relational depth of a person. In other words, it helps you understand why you do the things you do. It’s more holistic. And as employees learn about themselves through the Enneagram, they’re better able to develop strategies for their own meaningful, lasting growth.

Cognitive diversity

Much attention is given to the gender and ethnic makeup of teams, and rightly so. Inclusive organizations are twice as likely to meet or exceed their financial targets, and they are six times as likely to be innovative. Yet an element of diversity that is often overlooked is cognitive diversity – differences in perspective or information processing styles.

Understanding and appreciating the range of approaches your colleagues take to solving problems, managing conflict and delivering feedback will enable you to communicate more effectively with each other. As your team raises its collective level of emotional intelligence, it fosters cooperation, creativity, innovation and collaboration.

Stress management

Unsurprisingly, people are stressed right now. According to the American Psychological Association, one in three employees typically feel stressed out during the day. Helping them manage this stress is vital to both their personal success and the success of your company. A strong employee wellness program includes efforts to help employees identify coping strategies in times of stress.

Mindfulness exercises can also help employees reduce anxiety. Focusing on breath and staying engaged in the present helps the body physically handle stress while granting mental clarity. An employee who feels strong in their body and in their mind is much better equipped to live a healthy life and give their work the effort and focus required.

Building team trust

In a time of social distancing and with more people working from home, many employees feel disconnected from others. And yet others may have felt some security in that aloneness and are a bit afraid to come back out and reengage. How do you build trust among team members in an environment when many are remote? What about when employees have differing feelings about returning to the office or venturing out from home?

Trust is necessary for high-performing teams, but so many of us feel it’s been violated. Trust has been shaken in our justice system, our government leaders and each other as we’re confronted with questions that range from “Where have you been?” to “Are you a threat to my life?” We have to connect building trust to our employee wellness offerings because if your employees don’t feel safe with their colleagues, they can’t bring their full selves to work each day.

These programs are more important than ever

People are hurting. They’re in need of support. Now is the time to try something new. A holistic employee wellness program that addresses mental health and team health will make a difference. Let’s challenge the idea that a wellness program should only focus on activities that lower insurance costs or directly drive money to the business. Let’s offer employees a full spectrum of help — I have no doubt we’ll see the benefits.

We live in a world where external stimulation can create opportunities for stress in any moment. And the war we are engaged in against COVID-19 has opened our eyes to a whole new level of stress.

Yet, the external world around us is ultimately not responsible for our suffering. It is our response to it that causes the biggest problems. Your response is your responsibility, and a choice. I believe this deep in my core, and this understanding has changed my life in countless ways.

I believe there are three basic ways that we induce suffering upon ourselves on a regular basis. My hope is that as we work together to slow the spread of this virus, you have more awareness and a greater understanding of how your response can lessen the personal impact.

1. The Illusion of Control

The illusion of control is widespread. We have this idea that we can work hard, and what we do is so important that through force of will, we will ensure things will turn out as we want. 

The truth is—we’re never in control! There are only 2 things that we control: our attitude and our response.

Everything else, if we’re lucky, is a matter of influence at best.

When the illusion of control collides with reality, it highlights one very important truth: You’re responsible for what you do and the actions you take, but you need to release yourself from the outcome as you have no authority or control over it.

We can either deny that fact, or we can embrace it.

2.  Imposing Our Expectations on Others

Often, we mentally consider what we would do in a particular situation or with a certain task and then assume that standard for others. This is futile.

Are your relationships based on expectations or agreements? Expectations lead to disappointment; they also create external blame and place all the responsibility outside yourself. But don’t we want to live our lives in a way that maximizes our responsibility and influence?

The alternative to expectations is agreements—co-created, mutually-agreeable arrangements between key players. In an agreement, people come together and negotiate what is desired and when it will be delivered. 

Agreements work because they are promises created out of mutual respect. Agreements infer that you were seen, heard and respected. Consequences are rarely necessary in a true agreement because people give their word based on the best information available. People honor agreements far more than expectations.

3. Our Inability to Simply Accept What Is

As Eckhart Tolle states, “Accept the present moment as if you had requested it.”

Our thoughts are easily consumed by how things “should be.” The problem with this is that the present moment is already here. The situation is what it is. It may be different moving forward, but this is what we have now.

This is about accepting or surrendering to life and using what you have available to you for your benefit instead of struggling against reality to get the exact outcome you need.

The words “acceptance” and “surrender” may have negative connotations – they can imply defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life. But I’m not suggesting that you passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and do nothing about it. Nor should you cease making plans or initiating positive action. 

Surrender is the simple but profound wisdom of yielding to, rather than opposing the flow of life. It is to relinquish any inner resistance to what is. This resistance comes through mental judgment and emotional negativity, but the moment the judgment stops through acceptance of what is, you are free.

Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not mean that on the outer level you cannot take action and change the situation. In fact, it is not the overall situation that you need to accept when you surrender, but just the tiny segment that is this present moment.

I repeat the mantra below when I catch myself frustrated by being stuck in traffic, getting in the wrong check-out line, or fretting about the weather.

“I accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation.”

I challenge you to reflect on which of these three is your “go to” suffering strategy as we cope in these unprecedented times. It may be helpful to look at yourself through the lens of your Enneagram Type. Which one of these do you oppose or breach most often to create unnecessary stress?