If you’ve been thinking about offering office massage therapy to your employees, you’re not alone. Over the last few years, we’ve seen some of the biggest brands in the world offering corporate messages to employees and we love it!
Office massage therapy has a lot of benefits and perks, we understand how important employee wellness is. We’ve seen this trend playing out over the last few years. While the pandemic halted employee wellness programs across the world, we’re now starting to see companies once again focus on employee wellness.
In this study, HR.com reported that mental and emotional well-being have surpassed physical well-being as a critical focus for employer wellness programs. In fact, several respondents weighted the most important well-being initiatives as follows:
- Mental and emotional (78%)
- Work environment (70%)
- Physical (66%)
- Financial (56%)
- Social (48%)
In a similar vein, over 64% of companies listed employee mental health as one of their top five HR priorities in WellRight’s survey.
As you can see from the survey, mental health, emotional health, and work environment top the list. Thanks to research and studies, we know that massage can help reduce stress and anxiety. A one-hour massage lowers cortisol in your body while also releasing serotonin. This hormone neurotransmitter is sometimes called the “happy chemical” because it reduces feelings of depression and carries signals between nerves and your body. By lowering cortisol and increasing serotonin, you’re boosting your body’s ability to fight off pain, anxiety and feelings of sadness.
A massage does more than just feel good. It can lower the amount of cortisol in your body. This hormone is produced when your body is stressed. It increases glucose in your bloodstream, enhances your brain’s use of glucose and curbs functions that are nonessential in a fight-or-flight situation.
If you’re thinking about adding massage to your employee wellness program or considering launching a new program, it can be very beneficial.
What Is Office Massage?
Office massage generally refers to massage services that are provided for employees at their place of work. This can include both chair massage or table massage. Depending on the massage company you use, a wide variety of different massages may be offered, such as;
In some scenarios, office massage events are a one-time occurrence, employers will scheduled them with a spring or summer employee event. Over the last few years, we’ve seen trends moving toward hosting multiple massage events per year. Corporate massage events can occur on a regular basis, they’re usually part of a corporate massage program or some type of wellness initiative offered to employees.
When it comes to hosting corporate massage programs for your employees, these events can occur as many times necessary, or what ever frequency that makes sense for the size of your company. You could have anywhere from one massage therapist once a month, to several massage therapists daily. Or you could fall somewhere in between: a few massage therapists in your office once or twice a week.
Massage programs allow participants to receive regular massage services, which helps them experience the cumulative benefits of massage. Typically, a massage program will be set up with a schedule so employees know when they’ll be getting their massage.
Companies will start a massage program because they want to see an improvement in employee wellness, lowered stress levels, increased concentration at work, and reduced injuries or muscle strain at work.
Why Employers Should Offer Massage To Employees
Companies don’t invest in massage without wanting to achieve specific goals, there’s a reason employers want to offer massage to employees.
Let’s take a look at some of the most common reasons why companies use corporate massage programs.
Massage Shows Your Employees You Care: While companies can offer a number of different amenities and perks to employees, massage is one of those that stand out. Massage therapy has many benefits and a large percentage of employees don’t recognize at first because they’ve never had a professional massage before.
When Employees Feel Appreciated, They Work Harder: Appreciation can go a long way, all of us want to feel appreciated for the work we do.
A study by online career site Glassdoor revealed that more than 80 percent of employees say they’re motivated to work harder when their boss shows appreciation for their work, compared to less than 40 percent who are inspired to work harder when their boss is demanding or because they fear losing their job.
Positive ROI: Investment in perks like massage, reflexology or yoga does have return on investment – if it succeeds in making workers feel supported. At Google, employee satisfaction rose 37% as a result of investing in non-financial employee support initiatives.
Employee Retention: Employees are the heart and soul of your company. In 2022, it’s a lot tougher to keep talent. 57% of workers are open to looking for a new job. That’s nearly 6 out of 10 workers. Employee initiatives can play a role here, massage may help your employees feel more appreciated and less stressed.
Reduce Stress At Work: Another recent study shows that 60 percent of Americans say work is a significant source of stress, a service like onsite massage is an effective way to lower employee stress. You can see the study here.
Is An Office Massage Program Right For Your Company?
Some of the biggest companies in the world that offer employee massage events have something in common – they felt massage was a great initiative and well worth the investment. These are some of the most successful companies of the past century, why would they invest in corporate massage programs and events?
While we’ll never fully understand why, we do know a major majority of employees love working for them. These companies are highly regarded as some of the top companies to work for according to employees. Is it because employees feel that the company has their best interest at heart? Is it because they feel less stress due to massage and health initiatives being offered? Is it because they feel appreciated?
Your employees are your greatest assets and countless studies prove that when employees are happy, they’re more productive. When employees are more productive, more work gets done. Corporate wellness programs can help reduce healthcare costs, you can see what the CDC had to say about this here.
If you’re considering adding additional wellness initiatives to your wellness program, massage can be a great addition. In fact, some companies are implementing corporate massage programs to offer to employees. Either way, Soothe is here to help. We’ve worked with some of the biggest companies in the world, helping them bring massage programs to employees.
Reach out today to learn more about how we can help your company – here’s the link.
If you’re interested in hosting a massage event for a birthday, wedding, bachelorette party, or for the holiday, you can book your private massage event here.
