By Tanya Taneja
Wellness and health are very important values at Akraya. Our mission statement is “People Come First.” This reflects the quality of talent we place as a staffing company but also our attitude towards our employees and their well-being. The cornerstones of our wellness program are three simple words: Prevent, Educate, and Balance.
Prevent: We believe that the most important role of a company’s wellness initiatives should be to prevent illness and maintain the employee’s health. Prevention comes from educating and also from providing employees with a health-conscious work environment that supports healthy choices. The company provides its employees and spouses/children with free gym memberships to a nearby gym to make sure employees get enough daily exercise. Every Monday morning, a large basket of fresh fruit arrives to Akraya from a local farm to encourage employees to satisfy their appetite with a healthy treat.
We find that there is no better team building exercise than doing sports together. One initiative we are pursuing is the “Akraya Sports Wednesdays,” a monthly sports event that occurs in a nearby park. We recruited our employees into teams and we play soccer, volleyball, and Frisbee together. The Akraya team also participates in local races for charity. For the last five years, we have been a returning Gold Sponsor and participant of the Race For Literacy, a 5K race with the goal to eliminate illiteracy in India.
Educate: We also make sure employees have access to diet and healthy lifestyle counseling. At the local gym, employees are welcome to attend the complimentary nutrition classes as well as weight control counseling. We are also planning to start hosting on-site workshop lunches inviting experts to educate employees about healthy and green lifestyle choices as well as alternative wellness practices like Ayurvedic medicine.
Balance: Akraya management truly believes in the adage “it is not the number of hours you put in, it is what you put into those hours.” Our flexible work schedule allows employees to adjust their work hours with their personal lives and start or finish work earlier or later. By investing in training, productivity tools, and monitoring employee workloads, we ensure that our staff is not overloaded to the point that they have to work long hours.
