It’s the first few months back at work for you after the Festive Season break and we bet you’re feeling well-rested and re-inspired! How do you think you will be feeling 6 months from now? What if you could maintain your level of energy and focus for the next 12 months? Well, you can! And you can help your employees and colleagues to it too.
A study by Phillippa Lally is a health psychology researcher at University College London tells us that it takes about 66 days before a new behaviour becomes automatic. (You can read more about the science of habit forming here.) While it takes longer than that to form a habit, if you can stay the course for 66 days, you have a great chance of making it stick. Choosing what behaviour to change can either be a personal decision or you could choose something for the whole office to participate in. Options could be:
- Switching to walking meetings
- Remove junk food or sugary snacks from the vending machines or cafeteria
- Making it a policy not to send emails between 6 pm and 7 am (it’s already law in France)
- Incentivising staff to take their annual leave every year
- Creating a volunteer programme where employees can spend 4 office hours working at a project they feel passionate about. The benefits are well documented.
- Create a power nap or meditation area where people can find some quiet time when they need it
There are LOADS of apps to help you entrench behavioural change in your life and in the office. One of our favourites is Fabulous (available from the iStore or Google Play). It is a science-based app, incubated at Duke University’s Behavioural Economics Lab in the US. It is jampacked with routines, challenges and reading material, all backed by science, to help you make your new, healthier habits stick. You can even set it up for your whole workplace. Take a look at the corporate courses we offer that can help improve your team’s wellness and productivity. They can all be presented on-site at your office.