Most business owners work in fight or flight

Intro:

Business as usual in the service-based sector is not something I normally see as health promoting.

Consumers need their goods and businesses need to sell.

This creates a lot of tension and stress both positive and negative. Businesses feel that they need to adapt to the changes that happen and bend to the needs that seem to constantly change.

Like a nervous system a lot of businesses operate in fight or flight. The productivity actually happens in rest and digest mode and yet most of the activity only happens when things are chaotic leading to lackluster results.

But what if the structure felt more sustainable?

My web show “For the love of health” is an active discussion on how service-based business can be a health promoting venture.

Corporate Wellness as a model for service based industry?

There are lots of books and research studies on the subject of healthy corporate business cultures.

Wellness in business structures. healthy teams, much of the literature out there is focused on corporations since those are the businesses that have the most organization and resources to allocate towards these types of endeavors and initiatives.

The research on wellness in service-based businesses is not out there and so we are working to fill the gap. Learn more about our approach to business HERE.

The bottom line:

The science and data is clear that wellness in business structures have economic and other advantages.

Companies make more money and do better when money is spent on making businesses “healthier” both in output and input, back end and front end.

There are hundreds of case studies to support the use of wellness programs and other wellness concepts in business structures. Just a few examples are: programs that promote employee health, projects to do good in the community of the business location, on site gyms/meditation gardens/yoga studios etc, environmental design that is health promoting, consumer campaigns to increase well being etc. The list of concepts that have been tested are numerous.

Service based business in our cities and towns do lots of interactions with the public and are filling necessary solutions and yet many of these businesses do not have the bandwith or organization to include wellness in their business structures. The irony is that many service based businesses offer wellness to consumers when they themselves do not have wellness in their own day to day operations. It’s not pleasing to visit a wellness service and to hear that the provider is burnt out or overworked yet this is a common and strangely socially accepted theme.

For some reason we accept unhealthy businesses because they are still providing goods and services. This is part of the problem—-we should desire healthy goods/services that come from healthy places. The shift does naturally occur; people do feel out their options and go to where they feel they most belong and where they feel their shopping will do the best.

When the business culture is healthy it naturally attract a new level and pedigree of customer.

The main consequence of an unhealthy business:

What is the main struggle of service-based businesses? Employment.

And this is one of the easiest ways to know if a service-based business is struggling with its health.

Many local service based businesses struggle with maintaining employees or hiring employees and a huge reason for this is the fact that there is a lack of wellness or health inside the structure of the businesses. Creating wellness trainings, offering work life balance and flexibility attracts and retains talent in companies and yet many businesses fail to adopt even these most basic structures.

This could be because they see the workers of the company as just workers and not vital team participants for the company culture. Part of this reframing is understanding the team drives brand, values and mission of the company and treating the employees like customers does a lot of good—-you need to sell them the vision just as much as paying customers. Employees can be excellent customers.

Until smaller companies in the service-based realm see the bottom-line benefits of building a health focused business they are going to most likely stay on the same track.

I have spoken to service-based business owners who want to keep employees, but the actions of the business don’t align with what they say. This could be due to a mindset block, a lack of education around having employees, not seeing employee growth as a tactical approach to financial growth etc.

Investing in wellness is investing in the mission and core vision of the company and like branding has long term compounded effects. Having a team that feels healthy is a huge start to that.

An alternative:

The biggest compliment I received recently from a team member at Laura’s Botanicals is that she felt that “working for us was the least stressful thing she had going on”. I just loved that! This statement was spoken at a team meeting and it validates our mission to make business healthy. Does this mean that she is goofing off and not doing anything of financial benefit? Goodness no. It just means that we have designed a workflow for her that gives a lot to us but also gives a lot to her.

Subscribe to our YouTube channel where we regularly talk about this theme——-business can be healthy——we speak to many practitioners, coaches and consultants who have lots of real-world knowledge to share. We bring on diverse guests, 8 figure CEOS, product start-ups that have led the largest fundraisers ever, there is a lot to learn when it comes to building a healthy business.