When you own a business, it is a good idea to promote a healthy lifestyle to your employees. There are several benefits to having a healthy workforce that many business owners do not take into consideration. The following guide walks you through a few benefits associated with workplace health.
Taking the time to promote a healthy lifestyle can help people to start eating healthier foods and getting more exercise, which can help to improve their overall health. When their health improves, their illnesses will diminish and thus there will be a reduction in the number of sick days that your employees need to take. A great example of supporting a healthy lifestyle that reduces absences is paying for flu shots for your employees. The more employees that get flu shots, the less likely the flu will spread throughout your business.
If you pay for health care insurance for your employees, having a healthy task force will greatly reduce the cost that you have to pay for health care. It costs far less to insure people who are in good health, not overweight, and who have low cholesterol than people who are overweight, unhealthy, and living with high cholesterol.
Healthy foods have been shown to help with mental clarity and focus. Providing your workers with fresh fruits and vegetables for them to eat during their breaks and plenty of water for them to drink can help them be able to focus on their work. This can help them to be more productive, which will be very beneficial to your business as a whole. You can choose what items you have available in snack machines, removing sugar-filled juices and sodas and getting rid of carb-filled chips and cookies. This can help to decrease the amount of unhealthy food your staff eats.
"What's in your break room? Providing your workers with fresh fruits and vegetables and plenty of water can actually help employees focus on their work and increase productivity." [Click to Tweet!]
When people start to get healthy, they often enlist others to join their journey. This can help to build interpersonal relationships within your business as people choose to go on walks together during their lunch breaks. The closer knit your workforce is, the better they will be able to work together as a team. Workplace Health will be benefited across the board when employees are engaged, working toward health together.
When you have a healthy team of workers in your business, you will be able to have people working there long term. Eating a healthy diet can help to prolong someone's life. The likelihood of someone having a heart attack or stroke will be greatly diminished. Having people who can work at your business for years on end can help to ensure that you have a staff that knows what they are doing and can become more like a family than just people who work together.
It's important to realize that there are restrictions as to what you can and cannot say to your employees to motivate them to live a healthy lifestyle. Be sure to watch your wording when addressing health to ensure that you do not correlate it to advancement opportunities or possible termination of employment within your business.
The benefits of a healthy workplace include: