There is a big cost to a business when employees are ill or unhealthy. There is lost production with absenteeism, but also when employees don’t feel well they are less productive which is even more costly because it take them longer to complete their job tasks. When a task that may have taken 15 minutes to complete if they felt well takes them 30 minutes to complete because they do not feel well, it is an increased cost of 100%. Many employers and managers do not take this into consideration and think it is better to have a sick person at work than to not have them at all.
Many organization are trying to help their employees stay healthier by developing “wellness programs” to educate and inspire employees to work on getting healthy and staying healthy. There are many things that employers and managers can do to promote good health, like lunch time walks or runs together, eating together at a healthy cafe or everyone bringing healthy brown bag lunch. Maybe you can find a local nutritionist who would be willing to come in on a lunch hour and talk about healthy eating.
There is power in numbers so encouraging each other is important. In our office when we have in-service luncheons we always ask the reps to bring healthy, low-fat food and we have a list of the local vendors that we can count on getting it from. The reps are always amazed that we would prefer salads over pizza!
The link below has some pretty good ideas that you may find that would work in your place of employment. If you come up with some good ideas to share with us, please leave a comment. Best of health to you and those you work with!
08/05/14
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