Employee health and wellness is an afterthought for many businesses. Some businesses either simply don’t care about the wellness of their employees or don’t fully commit to their well-being. These companies shouldn’t be surprised when their employees constantly call in sick or if they have a big revolving door. Wellness should be a priority for you and employees who are happy and healthy are more productive. You might be hurting your bottom line by not caring about them. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can keep your employees happy and healthy.
Incentivize Healthy Living Habits
You can’t force your employees to live healthy lives, but you can encourage them to. You could offer a wellness incentives program that will give your employees discounts for going for preventative care or being wellness items. This could be done by giving them a card that will keep track of these purchases and issue discounts directly. If this is something that seems a little bit complex to you, don’t be intimidated, as there are services that will help formulate workplace wellness program for you.
Keep them Moving
One of the ways that you can encourage healthy habits in your organization is to change the configuration of the office and add new equipment. You should also see if you could institute a free movement policy. Open floor designs can work in some cases, especially if you’re in a creative field and creating different seating areas and workstations could help your employees’ creative juices flow while preventing them from developing issues from sitting in one spot for long periods.
We also suggest that you install a training room if you can and allow employees to have free access to it before, after, and in between shifts. Check break rooms and see if you could add games that will keep them active. Instead of adding a TV, you could look at installing an air hockey, ping pong table, or an arcade basketball net. This will not only keep your employee’s blood flowing but will also foster camaraderie and friendly competition.
Provide Healthy Food Options
You have full control over what is being sold at the cafeteria and around the office, so force your employees to make better choices. Carefully craft your cafeteria menu and remove anything deep-fried or high in sugar. Go for grilled and baked options whenever you can, and privilege sugars coming from natural sources.
Instead of having chocolate bars in your vending machines, for instance, then you could add healthy cereal bars and fruits. You could add fruit baskets around the office and allow people to eat for free. And if you have a pizza day, try to switch and go for healthy catering instead.
These are all things that will keep your employees happy, healthy, and more productive. Your employees should come first since your business rests on their shoulders, so always pay attention to their morale and always try to find ways to improve their work environment.
