By ROBYN GLEESON
This year, we’re putting wellness in the spotlight. Robyn Gleeson explains why every agency should adopt an attitude of wellness and implement strategies to care for their team. Why? Because the benefits are endless!
Wellness. It’s a word that we’re starting to hear a lot in the real estate industry. Perhaps it’s even now a little overused. But what does it really mean?
For some, it simply means attending to the basic needs that your body demands. For others, at the other end of the spectrum, it’s about living a life of purity, and embracing every wellness concept and resource available.
When we look to the dictionary definition, wellness is “a state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal.” What a wonderful concept!
Here’s why I strongly believe we all need to be spreading awareness of wellness across the real estate industry and be champions for change in this vital area.
Challenging work
The real estate industry is challenging – and the challenges we face, each and every day, are much the same from agency to agency. Real estate agents face both physical and mental demands. It’s a high energy job that requires resilience, stamina, endurance and patience. And let’s not forget the relentless hours – weekend commitments and out-of-hours communications make this a seven-day-a-week job.
So how can you possibly juggle all your work commitments and keep up with family life and personal interests, all the while maintaining a good balance?
“Now more than ever, we need to come together and support each other, which is why I’m asking you to commit to a wellness challenge in 2021.”
Commit to wellness
I believe that leaders across the industry – agency owners, managers, mentors and coaches – need to communicate a clear message to their teams: we’re invested in your wellness.
If we don’t care enough, nurture our teams and take responsibility for their wellness, then we’ll continue to lose good people from our industry. The talent pool will thin and recruiting will become even more difficult than it already is.
Agency leaders have a duty of care to their employees. Attitudes and behaviours matter and, as such, I believe they should be taking a strong position when it comes to wellness – both physical and mental.
The benefits of adopting a healthy lifestyle are endless. Like a well-maintained car, when you take care of yourself physically, you’ll perform at a better level and with more endurance. You’ll have more energy, more enthusiasm, more clarity and more focus. People who are well, radiate happiness. This, in turn, leads to greater positivity and less burn out. And let’s face it, if you burn the candle at both ends, there’s more at stake than simply your career. Your personal relationships can suffer, as will your physical health.
Coming together
No doubt, 2020 threw many challenges our way and wellness in our industry was thrown into the spotlight. But even before the pandemic, the pressure to act on wellness was mounting.
Now more than ever, we need to come together and support each other, which is why I’m asking you to commit to a wellness challenge in 2021.
I believe we all have the responsibility to contribute to an environment where we take care of each other and have access to the right resources to help deal with the pressures we face each and every day.
After all, we’re all in this together.
ROBYN GLEESON is a committed advocate for wellness in the real estate industry. With more than 20 years’ experience in the industry, she is a sought-after consultant, mentor and coach. You can connect with Robyn at ragconsulting.com.au.
The wellness challenge
Take the challenge and commit to wellness at your agency this year by taking the following steps.
1. Embrace wellness
Bring your team together and talk to them about the importance of wellness. Explain why this is an important conversation to have and how you feel it will benefit everyone as individuals. Ask them for their feedback about what they would find valuable in a wellness program. Having buy-in from the beginning from your team will go a long way to ensuring the success of any program.
2. Get active
Consider how you can encourage every team member to take charge of their physical wellbeing by being active. Why not engage a personal trainer to come to the local park a couple of times a week, so everyone in the team can come together for a group training session? Or perhaps you can organise a deal with a local gym for discounted workouts?
3. Check in
Mental health is just as important as physical health, but declines are much harder to spot. Encourage your team to check in on each other and foster a nurturing environment. It’s as simple as asking: “are you OK?” Let everyone know that taking 30 minutes off to have a coffee and a chat with a work mate is good – after all, we’re all here to support each other.
Wellness in the spotlight in 2021
Wellness has always been a key element in achieving and sustaining success in the real estate industry. It holds the potential to exponentially improve staff morale, and helps to improve retention and develop a healthy workplace culture.
With this in mind, here are the articles you can look forward to in this year’s editions of the Journal.
To give and to receive
Ever heard of the ‘giver syndrome’? As a woman, you may never have put a label on the condition, but you certainly know the symptoms – going above and beyond at work and at home to nurture and support everyone else. But what about you? We’ll help you learn how to not just give, but also receive in return.
Embracing wellness in the workplace
‘Wellness’ is not just a buzzword. Today, it’s an essential element of every healthy workplace culture. We’ll be sharing our 10 top tips about how you can motivate every member of your team to embrace wellness and wellbeing.
Curbing corporate burnout
Working in the real estate industry can be frenetic and stressful, and it’s all too easy to get caught in a work cycle that only has one outcome – a crash and burn! We’ll be giving you some straightforward strategies and practical tips to put in place to ensure you avoid burnout.
Walking the work-life balance tightrope
Work-life balance – that old chestnut! We’ve been talking about it for years, but never has it been more important than now when the way we work has changed so dramatically. We’ll be talking about how you can improve your time management to ensure you get the all-important balance right.
The Teflon coat theory
Sometimes the workplace can be hard going, so it’s important to protect your wellbeing, build resilience, and stay strong and grounded. We’ll give you tips to do just that and put on your Teflon coat. We’ll also look at how you can wear many different hats in business, and change from one to the other with ease.