New York: Strong and effective leadership are vital for any workplace. Managers play a huge role in creating the best work environment, polishing the behaviour of employees, and also promoting their health and wellness.

However, a new study suggests that managers must be provided with incentives to focus on creating a healthier work environment.

Increase in employee wellness and motivation can be achieved by tying 10 percent of managerial salary increases to health initiatives, the findings, published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, suggested.

‘Instead of focusing on individual wellness outcomes, we propose that it would be more effective if managers were incentivised to create healthier overall work environments with simple, easy to implement actions such as installing a water cooler, providing healthy snacks at meetings, and encouraging work/life balance,’ said lead author Rebecca Robbins from Cornell University in New York, US.

The initiative requires tapping into the manager's ability to lead his or her team to wellness and can, as a result, have a big payoff in terms of creating a culture of health at the workplace, and could tip the scales toward healthier employees.

The study surveyed 270 adults with manager roles and found that 68 percent supported the idea of being evaluated by their employee wellness actions.