Wellness and Cybersecurity: The Importance of Healthy Habits in the Digital Age
Historically, cybersecurity has been the domain of obscure tools that few people are familiar with. And one of the essential methods to ensure that everyone in the organization is aware of the importance and function of security is to approach cybersecurity education as an employee wellness effort rather than seeing it as a compliance obligation. Employee habits and conduct that protect company information also protect their families' safety at home. By prioritising the requirements of the employees, organisations can maximize training retention and engagement while encouraging long-lasting behavioural change and a safer environment.
The best way to ensure the least risk is to implement inclusive security strategies. Organizations must go above and above to show workers how forming safe routines and behaviors benefits the individual worker and the business. Employees must feel represented in the training curriculum, especially regarding employee security education. Thus it is imperative to implement inclusive security measures.
Generally, a happier team will perform better at work, so companies should actively support employee health and wellness.
Measuring Wellness
Although "well-being" is often used nowadays, few people know its definition. Although happiness cannot be consistently measured and might mean different things to different people, according to the Oxford Dictionary, "well-being" is defined as "being comfortable, healthy, or happy."
Maintaining positive relationships and a sense of belonging through social contact, making healthy food choices and staying active for physical health, having financial security, and engaging the mind intellectually, emotionally, and psychologically are just a few factors that contribute to positive well-being.
How Can You Support the Wellness of Your Employees?
An individual's behaviour can impact all of the aforementioned "measures" of well-being, but it has always been the employer's responsibility to step in and provide further well-being support. It is because of several self-serving reasons, which we'll discuss in more detail in this essay.
Employers have various options for promoting mental well-being, but outsourcing their entire program to a different vendor is the most straightforward. They will analyze the organizational structure, makeup of the workforce, and levels of well-being at your company before putting a strategy in place to ensure that each employee has access to the tools they need to feel happy, healthy, and fulfilled. While some service providers focus on working with startups and small enterprises, huge organizations frequently use them.
Many companies provide employee perks, including gym membership, home exercise equipment, an extra holiday or "duvet day," therapy, and coaching. Since having that much expertise in well-being carries a price, many companies choose to handle it themselves.
Why Is It Crucial?
Here are some reasons to consider your employees' welfare.
Improved productivity. If your team is equipped to care for themselves, they will work more and last longer, improving performance. There will be fewer sick days taken, as well.
Healthy work environment. A happy team will stick together and ought to be more driven to challenge both members of the team and themselves.
Decreased staff turnover. If your employees feel happy and cared for at work, the likelihood that they will leave will be decreased, saving you thousands in hiring and onboarding expenses.
Reduced healthcare costs. You, the employer, may be required to cover long-term health concerns brought on by disrespecting one's well-being.
Less human-errors. Lowered attention span and concentration brought on by weariness and illness may result in mistakes. Cybersecurity mistakes may and do result in data breaches.
Less chance of becoming burned out.
The Connection Between Cybersecurity and Wellness
As was already stated, everything is important in any sector, but we advise paying special attention to cybersecurity. An IT or cybersecurity team is less likely than other departments to launch company-wide well-being initiatives, despite the fact that there are major risks associated with poor well-being (88 percent of all data breaches are the result of employee error). It results from two things:
Suppose there have been confrontations with other departments over IT issues or security breaches. In that case, they may not feel appreciated by their coworkers and may not want to participate in corporate "events."
Because of the stress at work, many believe they cannot take a break, even for their health.
If the latter is the situation, a fix is needed. One of a cybersecurity team's most time-consuming tasks is prioritizing vulnerabilities. In actuality, 53% of companies think managing manual processes takes more time than solving issues. Your employees may be empowered to work more productively on remediation while receiving breaks and other opportunities to prioritize their well-being if you automate and carry out an information security risk assessment for your company. The result will be valuable.
Final Thoughts
Working in cybersecurity is demanding. A relentless commitment to exceeding standards and long hours are both necessary. Being entrusted with the confidential data of other businesses can also be very stressful. Putting your employees ' safety first is effective even if there isn't a one-size-fits-all method for figuring out the "correct" level of security coverage. Additionally, it's essential to create an internal wellness program for staff members to encourage good habits and teach stress-coping methods to address their most significant security threats.
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Sophia Young recently quit a non-writing job to finally be able to tell stories and paint the world through her words. She loves talking about fashion and weddings and travel, but she can also easily kick ass with a thousand-word article about the latest marketing and business trends, finance-related topics, and can probably even whip up a nice heart-warming article about family life. She can totally go from fashion guru to your friendly neighborhood cat lady with mean budgeting skills and home tips real quick.
