We all know the benefits of a healthier lifestyle – we feel better mentally and physically. But did you know that focusing on employee wellness can give your business a serious advantage?
Unhealthy employees are not just unmotivated but are also more likely to get hurt or seriously ill. But when employees feel healthier, they are happier and more productive.
The Business Gets A Positive Image
Whether you have a healthy eating cafeteria, an eco-friendly commute scheme, or a weekly office yoga session, when you are healthy, everyone feels happier. This, in turn, leads to the people your workers spend time with noticing their vibrancy and positivity.
Workers may even speak highly of the business online and in the community. This leads to your company developing a reputation for being an excellent place to work This in turn means more people will want to work with you!
1. There is a sense of community
Whether you have workplace health schemes and challenges, as well as an office football team, or even colleague charity fun runs, this teamwork builds a sense of community.
Working together in this way gives everyone a sense of camaraderie and workplace satisfaction. This feeling of community translates into increased motivation to work, meaning better productivity.
2. Everyone has fun
When the business works together to get healthier, whether changing the menu in the workplace canteen, swapping nutritious recipes, trying out new sports and challenges, or having a lunchtime walk together, everyone has fun.
You can expect everyone to get on board with workplace health challenges, leading to increased engagement, attendance, and motivation.
3. The workplace becomes a team
Now that the company is working together on staying healthy and fit, you’ll see everyone start working together as a team. Outside work, colleagues may discuss healthy eating, favorite walking routes, or sports they play together.
This provides a bonding experience for employees. Then, when it comes to working, colleagues are already close. This means they work better together.
4. Workers feel accomplished
Don’t you feel better when you know you are doing the right thing for your body? Now imagine what it’s like when the whole workplace feels like this!
When the entire team works together towards a healthy lifestyle, productivity goes through the roof. On top of this, you see an increase in everyone’s energy, a better workplace attitude, and more confidence.
5. Performance will increase
Whether you implement an entire employee wellness program or just pledge to work towards increasing employee wellness, you can expect employee productivity to increase.
Why is this? Well, when workers feel healthier, they have more energy. This means they’ll have a better attitude towards their work, improved focus, more engagement, and superior productivity.
6. More leadership and confidence
What makes an employee suitable to take on leadership roles? Well, a healthy lifestyle might help. With the increased confidence, happiness, productivity, and focus a healthy lifestyle brings, anyone who leads a healthy lifestyle is the perfect candidate for the job.
So, it pays to help your employees keep healthy if you’re a boss. Or, if you’re an aspiring candidate, staying fit and healthy is all you need to do to excel.
7. Less employee absence
Yes, it’s been proven that people who lead a healthy life have less absence from work. This makes sense – when people have healthier habits, they are obviously in better health.
They then need fewer doctor’s appointments. But this is also down to good health support from higher up – when bosses don’t push their employees too hard, workers are less likely to get burnt out, too.
8. There are fewer costs
When employee health is supported, the organization saves money. How? Healthy employees are less likely to use health insurance. This means healthy workers qualify for a cheaper health insurance rate – a big saving for both employee and employer.
Also, employees with supported health and better training are less likely to sustain an injury in the workplace. With increased fitness and knowledge comes fewer claims since fewer accidents occur.
Plus, there’s the increased productivity to consider. More healthy employees simply work harder with less illness, increased motivation, and workplace satisfaction.
Workers being more healthy also means the organization won’t need to pay as much sick pay.
Then there’s the increased motivation. With better productivity, the wages you pay thus go farther – you don’t have to fork out for unmotivated employees.
9. Better employee retention and recruitment
When your workplace prioritises employee health, you can expect your workers to spread the good word by word of mouth and in reviews. They’ll recommend your business to everyone. This means recruiting will be easier since your workplace will really seem like the place to be.
Not that you’ll need to – having an emphasis on employee health also means that your employees will want to stay on. When an employer goes out of their way to make sure that workers are healthy, employees report better workplace satisfaction and increased happiness.
How can I improve employee wellness?
Now that we’ve established some of the benefits of employee health, you’re probably wondering how you can begin boosting your employee wellness. One of the best ways to promote health in the workplace is by implementing an employee wellness program. An employee wellness program has everything you need to get started with workplace health.
Failing this, you could send some emails around. Try asking what your colleague’s health goals are first. For example, if most people want to eat healthier, you could start exchanging recipes by email every week. Or, if people want to get more steps in, you could have a lunchtime walking group. Maybe a group of people would like to set up an office football team or go bowling together – if so, set this up.
Another thing you could do is start workplace health challenges. For example, why not set up a FitBit step count or active minutes challenge and see who can do the most exercise within a week?
There are many ways to improve employee health and have fun doing it!
Read Also:
- 7 Ways to Build a Healthy Work Relationship With Your Employees
- The Importance of a Healthy Work Environment
- 5 Night Routines That Define Your Success
