How To Improve Staff Wellbeing At Work

Can Art Improve Work Performance?

How to improve staff wellbeing at work. Creativity is crucial for society and for many different reasons. Without creativity, we cannot imagine new inventions, we cannot envisage the future and we cannot solve problems. Everything comes from an idea, and just like we exercise our bodies, if we are not exercising our ideas and understandings, how can we innovate?

We are going to look at how incorporating Art into business can improve not only your productivity and outward thinking but also how the effects can help with staff retention and increase the level of morale in the workplace.

Let’s hit you up with 4 facts to get the ball rolling:

1. Losing 1 member of staff costs around 33% of their salary to replace. This includes recruitment fees, gardening leave and training the new employees.

2. Bad culture makes employees 24% more likely to look for other work. If you can’t sustain a healthy atmosphere and habits within your company, you will likely struggle to earn loyalty.

3. A good Work–life – Balance shows that employees are 10% more likely to stay just by having the employer show respect and support for their team’s individual lives and time.

4. Encouraging professional growth suggests that staff are a whopping 93% more likely to stay for longer if they have a positive and engaging team at work that want to bring out the best in their staff.

Does the ethos of these problems sound familiar to you? The good thing is, is that there are ways to make sure your staff are optimising their time at work and ensuring work efficiency and fresh energy in your business without having to get new employees every time.

Let’s look at some of the issues we face in the office and think about how Art can help to solve the problem.

Classic symptoms of low-performing staff:

· Unmotivated

· Poor punctuality

· Lack of attention to detail

· Easily distracted & good at distracting others

· Slow work response

· Lack of ownership and initiative

· Resentment & mood swings

· Refusal to follow instructions

Put your hand up if this sounded familiar? Guilty! We’ve all been there when we have been near the brink of a work induced breakdown or we are ready to quit. Even if we are the exemplary employee, we have definitely seen this happen within someone else. No-one likes to have to deal with a team mate who isn’t pulling their weight right? With little or no support in place to develop and no system for encouraging growth and personal development, is there any wonder why peoples eyes stray from one job to the next?

ArtistAnd - Drawing Team Building Activity

How can Art Improve Low Performance Levels?

Art is a great way to refocus someone’s attention and attitudes. Learning new cognitive skills, just like learning how to draw, trains the brain to become better at solving many of the problems listed above.

For example, learning to draw can teach you how to:

· Create personal goals

· Become accountable to yourself and others around you

· Imagine creative solutions by practising creative techniques

· Increase your listening and communication skills through learning and gentle critique

· Improve your memory and concentration

· Improve your mood and practise simple meditative qualities

· Affordable techniques to use anywhere that are effective and engaging

· Reward yourself for good work and find endorphins for hard perseverance

· Learn from mistakes and improve on them

· Take initiative and predict the outcomes

The Benefits of Art and Business

As we repeat the same tasks and become accustomed to our jobs, we tend to get tired of it, bored of repetition. A lot of roles can feel stifling, and in a city like London where jobs are plentiful, you are always looking for the next best thing and you start to think, where can I go next? Will it be better for a different company? I am being challenged enough and I am still learning.

Incorporating Art into the work environment is both rewarding and mindful. By practising drawing and practising having patience, practising failing and succeeding, we are able to mirror this ethos into our working lives. For example; we have to listen to our boss even though we may not enjoy it, and in drawing we have to listen to our teacher even though we can have that same feeling of frustration with our own work. We need to learn to be honest and truthful to our peers and colleagues while critiquing their artwork, but navigating the skills to do so without humiliation comes from the critical practice of unbiased observation and unobjective viewpoints. We should be echoing these elements and lessons into the office. Art allows us to use our senses in order to perceive the world.

Team Building Activity To Improve Communication

How can we help you to help them?

ArtistAnd provide team workshops using traditional techniques in our drawing practice. We keep the sessions simple and engaging and teach people the core fundamental training like the old masters would have done in the Renaissance period. Art can help us build on and improve our cognitive abilities and relieve stress in this chaotic over-worked culture we live in today.

Our workshops are altered to your business needs. From helping to develop good communication skills and unemotive personal critiques, to fun energetic team-building and ice-breaking sessions. We also encourage mindful meditative practice so if you have a mental health awareness week, you should consider giving your staff the opportunity to explore the benefits of this affordable and accessible craft.

If you wish to find out more about the workshops and how we can bring Art to your office.

Please drop us a line!