A normal worker spends 8-10 hours in the office. Add a few hours of daily night-sleep to that and it’s enough to understand that a larger portion of their daily life is spent in the workplace. When that much time is being devoted somewhere, it becomes imperative that your health and well-being is taken care of in and around that place.
Today, most organisations realise the importance of the good health and wellbeing of their employees. Healthy and happy employees would mean more productivity, energy and positivity at the workplace. All this translates to the profits and growth of the organisation. There are various health and wellness programs that many organisations implement on and the benefits reaped from these programs expand in more than one dimension.
For example, it’s not just the productivity that can be increased, but health and wellness programs also allow an organization to save some redundant but inevitable expenses. If an employee is unwell and takes a day off, the absence comes with a specific cost to the organisation. When more and more employees are absent on a frequent basis, the cost will increase and that can be prevented through proper health and wellness of the employees, resulting in reduced absenteeism.
Let’s take a look at how organisations can actually promote health and wellness in the workplace.
1. Creating Awareness
First and foremost, organisations need to focus more on creating awareness about health and well-being in general. Occasional meetings and workshops can be held for that purpose. Awareness on the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol should be generated in the workplace without any inhibitions. The more the people realise how good health can benefit them in all the areas of life, the better it will be in the interest of the organisation.
3. Endorsing Healthy Eating
The diet of a person has a direct impact on their physical and mental health at some level. Therefore, organisations can advise their employees to eat healthy and whenever there is a lunch-party at the workplace, there should be healthy food in the menu. More of such healthy lunches at work will put the employees in the habit of eating healthy outside the workplace as well.
4. Associating Rewards with Health
Creating awareness on eating healthy is important but all this talking has a limitation. Organisations can only help the employees to an extent. The real effectiveness, however, comes with holding some rewards for the employees who implement good health practices. For example, rewarding the employee who has the least number of absences at the end of the month with a fine dine-in can work. Organisations can even reward with e-gifts.
5. Encouraging Physical Activity
Some physical activity is necessary for people to stay fit and healthy. Organisations can encourage the employees to engage in more physical activity throughout the day. As far as the workplace is concerned, there can be regular or weekly sport sessions or any such activities that will require the employees to get moving with their bodies, instead of only sitting at a desk.
Health and wellness go hand in hand and both can be ensured in the workplace if right measures are taken.