Innovative ideas for employee events to promote workplace wellbeing | 2023 Wellbeing Calendar

Here at Recess Living, workplace wellbeing is our focus year-round. However, we also know that at certain times of the year, it’s well and truly thrust into the spotlight, thanks to wellness days, awareness weeks, and holiday periods. These key dates and events can act as an excellent springboard for bringing the conversation to your office or space, but how do you bring them to life? As it’s our area of expertise, we thought we’d share some of our ideas for employee events to increase and promote workplace wellbeing in 2023.

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Why are workplace wellbeing events so important?

But first: why are these events so important? Workplace wellbeing events are so important because they create a sense of belonging and an inclusive culture in your workplace. This helps your employees feel safer, more valued, and ultimately happier at work – which, with Gen Z and Millennials preferring to be jobless than work for a company they don’t like, is nowadays more important than ever.

In addition, an inclusive culture positively impacts the bottom line. On average, employers obtain a return of £5 for every £1 they invest in it. In 2019, Harvard Business Review reported that organisations where employees felt a high sense of belonging saw a 56% increase in job performance, the risk of turnover reduced by 50%, and a 75% decrease in the number of sick days being taken. Forbes even found that a strong company culture can drive revenue up by a huge 682% (nope, not a typo). So the question isn’t why would you want ideas for employee events to promote workplace wellbeing…but why wouldn’t you?!

Some ideas for employee events to promote wellbeing in 2023

Ideas for employee events to help relieve stress

Central to our mission here at Recess Living is the belief that when your hands are busy, your mind is calm. That’s why we have a whole host of creative workshops that your employees can become immersed in. 

They can reach their flow state learning how to float a rainbow of coloured inks on the surface of a water bath, and creating a range of stunning prints to take home. Alternatively, they could create textile wall hangings to play with shape, texture, and breathe new life into cutoffs that would otherwise have been discarded. Or perhaps they’d prefer a playful pottery session, where they can kick back and unwind whilst creating objects from air-dry clay. (No kiln needed!)

An ideal addition to April

Our workshops would all make particularly excellent additions to your events calendar in April, which is Stress Awareness Month. Crafting is a great way to find some calm; in fact, we even call our curated craft offerings ‘meditation for doers’, because research has shown that being creative has a similar effect to meditation!

Ideas for employee events to help manage anxiety

Anxiety surrounds so many things in our modern lives, including money, work, relationships and more. ​​A really great tool to add to your toolbox for managing anxiety is active rest. So often, we think of mindfulness as having to be still and silent, but active rest can be just as nourishing. This is where our craft workshops are, again, an excellent addition, creating moments of mindfulness and space.

Another brilliant tool in managing anxiety is connecting with your senses, which helps you get out of your head and back into the world around you. Actively engaging with each sense is a great grounding technique that helps pull the anxious energy from your mind back into your body, so that you can then release it (that’s why therapists often recommend the 54321 method, or the Five Senses technique, which isolates each of your senses through observation, as a grounding exercise to relieve anxiety and panic attacks.)

Make May less anxious

15th - 21st May marks Mental Health Awareness Week, and this year the focus is anxiety. With this in mind we’ve put together a weeklong series of activities and activations that engage all the senses. Bespoke itineraries can be created on request, but here’s an example of the array of beautiful multi-sensory classes, rituals and talks that we could bring to your workplace: 

Day 1: Soundbath

Day 2: Reflexology

Day 3: Aromatherapy balm workshop

Day 4: Creative journalling workshop

Day 5: Twice As Nourished supper club

Ideas for employee events to promote work-life harmony

Instead of focusing on work-life balance, we prefer to think of it as work-life harmony; where the two work in tandem to bring you everything you need to feel fulfilled and nourished. This reframe is just one example of why the conversation is still so precinct and necessary! 

That’s why we have a number of panels and talks that centre around the topics we don’t talk about enough, as well as a special edition of our exclusive themed Twice As Nourished Supper Clubs. This innovative event format takes the experts off the stage and instead puts them around the table with attendees, resulting in a safe, supportive environment where guests can feel community and collective understanding. Plus, this all happens over a delicious menu of seasonal food and a beautiful tablescape.

Perfect for September’s events calendar

Our thoughtfully curated panels and supper club offering would work particularly well at the end of Q3, as 18th - 24th September is the International Week of Happiness At Work. In collaboration with Sophie Cliff of Joyful Futures, the theme of September’s supper club is “Choose Joy” – because you and your employees deserve to feel joy at work. 

So, what’s next?

2023 wellbeing calendar

Here we’ve shown just 3 ways that these events can be held – but there’s so many more! That’s why we created our 2023 wellbeing calendar, containing a year’s worth of brilliant ideas for employee events to promote workplace wellbeing, for free.

Sign up for our newsletter to receive a year's worth of brilliant ideas for employee events that promote wellbeing in the workplace - delivered straight to your inbox every quarter!

Creating space for these conversations year-round

And, as we said at the top, these conversations shouldn’t be seasonal. They’re best to continue throughout the year in your office or space, bolstering a safe, understanding workplace environment day by day. We know it’s not always easy, but we're here to support you to do just that, by creating engaging ways to get the conversations going and free-flowing.

If you’d like to chat about booking events for your team at any time of year, then we’d love to hear from you! Drop us a line here to enquire.