5 Ways to Promote Wellness & Health in the Workplace

Workplace Wellness & Health helps to promote the health of your employees and their families while reducing your health-related costs as an employer.

Many businesses tend to focus on educating employees around the benefits of health and lifestyle modification. This means encouraging employees to focus on key health behaviours such as increasing physical activity, improving eating habits and reducing stress.

Health and efficiency have a clear relationship—healthy employees take fewer sick days and are more productive at work—and businesses are starting to take notice.

The good news is that even if you aren’t in a position to implement a comprehensive health scheme, there are many small steps you can take to promote their health is important to the company.

Here are 5 ideas to bring your company closer to wellness:

1. Encourage exercise
Turn your office into an active place. Consider offering covered, secure bike parking for commuters. Or provide showering facilities and locker rooms for employees who wish to workout at lunch. Can’t make structural changes? Offer Gym membership or reduced fees for gyms and classes for employees and encourage the entire office to use the stairs.

2. Educate your employees
Lunch time seminars are prime opportunities for helping employees learn more about healthy habits and reducing stress. Recruit specialist speakers to lead sessions on cooking healthy meals, staying healthy while travelling, or quick stress management skills. If you have the space, consider bringing in yoga, tai chi, or aerobics instructors for a short lunchtime class. Keep sessions entertaining but informative, and offer incentives for employees who attend.

3. Health Packages
Offer employee health incentive programs. Might be a free eye test, dental check ups or annual health assessments. If you are a larger organisation you may consider health insurance for employees as a benefit.

4. Healthy Options
Everyone knows when you’re hard at work it can be easy—or necessary—to quickly grab a bite from what’s at hand. Offer your employees healthy snacks and meal options that help fuel their performance while also meeting their nutritional needs. Consider replacing sodas with milk, juice, or sparkling water, and stocking snack machines with nuts, dried fruit, and other healthy options. If you can take it a step further, stock lunchrooms with fresh fruit baskets once a week, and be sure the office cafeteria has plenty of healthy meal options.

5. Be mindful of mental health
Unmanaged stress has been linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, and sleep trouble. At the workplace, it can lead to inefficiency, job dissatisfaction, and absence from work for related health conditions. Encourage employees to take simple steps to reduce stress, like taking several breaks a day to go for a walk, chat with a co-worker, or just get outside for a breath of fresh air.

Now let’s all get healthy at work…