The work of a company is not just to provide its product/service to customers, it is also to maintain a good relationship with employees and support their journey throughout the tenure in the company. Health can be a personal matter but it must never be viewed through its heavy bills or the dollar signs. Employee health has a practical effect on the business and must be considered. Health not only affects the physical and mental well – being of the staff, it also hampers the output by the employees for which the company is paying.
According to a poll in Gallup, unhealthy employees were the reason for a loss of almost $153 billion per year, and this data contained 110,000 employee answers. One of the other startling facts of the result includes that only close to 14% of the employees are of a correct weight.
Having said that, companies do not have to invest millions (or billions) to take care of their employees, and neither do they have to pay each and every medical bill. Think about it as a business expense. You would pay for a hotel package in Hobart for your employees, why wouldn’t you pay for their gym? Just don’t make them feel bad about it. Instead, there are simple steps you can use to ensure that their experience at the company is healthy. That can go a long way in boosting productivity and retaining them. Some large companies already recognize this issue and continually improve their health benefits.
We think it’s time for small business to get better at this too!
Encourage your employees to be physically fit
Make it easy for your employees to relax and improve their physical fitness when away from work. Although you cannot force them to do physical activity, you can constantly support them verbally. Also, why not build a small fitness centre at the workspace where the employees can do some work-outs during breaks? If your office is near a waterfront accommodation, you can perhaps work out a collaborative approach with them? If you cannot afford that luxury, perhaps you can provide discounts to your employees at the local gyms.
- Make them eat healthily
If your employees are using lunch breaks to grab a burger at McDonald’s, then they are not doing themselves any favours. Instead, encourage them to eat healthy by stocking with healthy foods in the kitchen of the company.
If you have an option to provide onsite meals to your employees, that is even better. You can choose and customize the menu to include healthier eating options, while taking care of the dietary requirements of different people.
- Put rewards for employees to be healthy
There are some people in the workforce who will need a little more push than the others. This is when you gamify the choices. If you are unable to convince them to be healthy via conventional methods, it might be time to make the whole process a little more enticing to them. To do so, you can reward the fittest employee in your department or reward those who exercise most during a workweek. Motivate the people through challenges and games and see the activeness spike up with the participants.
The health of employees is very significant in today’s world and a large portion of it is in the hands of the company. As a company, it is not only important to encourage being healthy, it is also vital to schedule, and execute work in such a manner that it does not exert unrealistic amounts of physical and mental pressure on the employees.
