Ep #307: Employee-customized Wellness Programs - with Daniel Freedman

This episode of The ShiftShapers Podcast is called "Employee-customized Wellness Programs - with Daniel Freedman". Today, host and Chief Transformation Strategist David Saltzman and Daniel discuss wellness challenges in the workplace, expanding wellness to include emotional support, and migrating these classes to the online space.The key difference is the social aspect and Daniel provides examples of how companies that cater to the social needs of their employees see a boost in happiness and productivity, even as people from across the world work from home amidst the coronavirus pandemic.What You’ll Learn From this Episode:02:08 Employers and how they view wellness in their companies06:31 Challenges to wellness: relatability & social connection11:05 Communicating wellness in the workplace14:49 Specialty and emotional support classes16:53 Sharing wellness exercises with family and friendsQuotes:06:05 “It’s the reason why we are focused online is because that’s where the need is. That’s where the challenge is. Most people never go into a gym or studio. Most people are struggling and they need both the programming and the social motivation to do it.”07:57 “So number 1, the big gap right now, has been a lack of choice and diversity when it comes to programming. People react to what’s relatable to them. You show them something that’s not relatable, they’re just going to ignore it.”08:48 “The key to both initiating and critically sustaining behavioral change is social support.”17:13 “As as you can imagine right now, with the current health crisis especially so, where people are stuck in their own homes and they’re missing that social connection with others, what they’re able to do is they’re actually seeing and hearing each other.”19:48 “If I can just open up my phone or my computer and invite my wife in her office to do a 15-minute mindfulness class with me, that’s increasing the odds that I’m going to do it and that’s going to increase the odds that she’s going to do it.”