Holistic Wellness in the Workplace

There is a significant disconnect between the eight dimensions of wellness with employees and the workforce. Near the turn of the 20th century, there has been more focus on wellness in the workplace to increase productivity, with more of a push around the 1990s to improve health. Unfortunately, current research still has significant gaps. Most wellness programs focus on physical health, which does not address all wellness needs, as there are eight dimensions of wellness for working-age adults. Even holistic wellness programs are missing some crucial aspects; they focus on limited components of wellness with a heavy focus on physical and mental health across programs. Workplace wellness needs a fully holistic wellness program using the eight dimensions of wellness. The founder of the eight dimensions of wellness, Margaret Swarbrick, has found a need for this in all aspects of life with a recent call to arms on an implementation in workplaces. This project consisted of 22 participants from various workplace settings who were all full-time employees with 15 total participants completing the study entirely. This amount allowed for participant dropouts while maintaining program efficacy for several individuals to not complete the program. The participants practiced various wellness activities during work to identify how fully holistic living affects workplace wellness. Participants gathered biometric data daily and took a wellness and work-place attitudes survey at the first and end of treatment to monitor effectiveness. Although the results did not fully support the hypothesis, all measures show promise for future studies in holistic wellness programs.