Employees are an asset to any organization. Their hard work, dedication, and commitment to the organization’s success can take it to newer heights.
Organizations pride themselves on their treatment of their employees. But often, employers are oblivious of how the work is being done, impacting the health and well-being of the employees.
Let’s have a look at what is employee well-being before moving further.
How is employee well-being defined?
Employee wellbeing is the term used to describe everything about the job that impinges on the health and happiness of an employee. Employee wellbeing is a multi-dimensional term. It is certainly not limited to physical health only but goes further to include financial, mental, social, psychological, and emotional health.
Organizations that value the health and wellbeing of their employee go beyond their obligations and provide them with a happy and fun environment.
At the same time, they ensure to remove all the hurdles that may hamper their employees’ productivity and peace of mind at work.
If you are new to the business and want to ensure your workplace is a source of comfort for your employees, here is what you can do about it.
Regular disease screening drives
The first initiative you can take is organizing regular disease screening drives at the workplace.
You may collaborate with organizations working on cancer prevention, hepatitis, and other fatal disease and call their teams for a free screening of your employees. Regular body screenings and tests help with the early diagnosis of any disease.
Moreover, medical professionals can also engage with the employees and discuss the benefits of staying healthy.
In addition, you have to ensure that your employees are following healthy work protocols and guidelines as long as they work for you.
Encourage your staff to not skip meals
Food seems like a secondary priority when working on important assignments or trying to meet stringent deadlines.
Many workplaces encourage this negligent attitude of their employees by praising them for their hard work. But management has to understand how wrong this attitude is. Your employee might be happy with your encouragement that they keep on neglecting their health.
Ultimately, when they fall sick, the work will get impacted. So, why not solve the issue when it is not matured yet.
Organizations should encourage all their employees to leave their workstations to eat at the right time as neglecting that would be bad for their health and productivity.
Health snacks at the workplace
A balanced and healthy diet is one of the most important pillars of staying healthy and ensuring wellbeing. As they say, we are what we eat; try to instill healthy eating habits in your employees.
Give them fruits, juices, and green tea in the pantry as healthy snacks and beverages.
When they have healthy options available to them, it is less likely that they will eat unhealthy snacks.
Moreover, it also shows your care and concern for your employee’s health.
Give your employees some discretion over their work
Most employers want to know everything happening in their office. Therefore, they try to control their employee’s work as much as possible.
Strictly defining how work will be done, what sitting arrangements employees can make, and how long they will work, or worst, having cameras on their heads are some of the controlling ways of the employees.
In the end, employers may have their eyes on everything. But they cage their employees, suffocating them with these binding. But they forget that they are impacting their employees’ creativity too.
Research states that little discretion about how work should be done leads to poorer work performance and increased heart disease rates.
Low job control and high work demand also increase the risk of diabetes and death from cardiovascular issues.
On the contrary, a study done in a call center revealed that giving your employee more training and letting them solve their customers’ complaints on their own improves employee job performance and well-being.
Flexible work hours and work location
Offices are notorious for having the same work schedules for all employees.
All the employees come and leave simultaneously, even though many have their life responsibilities or may not be their most productive selves during the traditional work hours. So, employers need to recognize and acknowledge the differences among their employees.
Research shows that giving your employees more discretion about their work schedule gives them more control and helps maintain their health. This discretion can involve allowing employees to have variable reporting and leaving times.
In an extensive workplace redesign, IT employees in one of the fortune 500 companies were given complete discretion about working hours and the place of work. However, they were given a mechanism to communicate with their teammates and the management. The setting resulted in employees’ better mental and physical health and reduced turnover intentions.
Reinforce the concept of sick days
Employee burnout is a real thing at the workplace. Overworking and continuous stress intake can make you disinterested in your work, reduce concentration and attention and increase errors. So, employers must reinforce the concept of sick days for their employees.
Encourage your employees not to come to work if they don’t feel healthy, even if there is no apparent illness such as fever, cold, etc.
Mental conditions such as work pressure and stress seldom show themselves as regular illnesses. Ask your workers to take a break and spend time with their families when they feel like it.
Spending time with family and close friends often helps you mentally and physically. Also, allow them to work from home quite often.
Conclusion
Employees are at the helm of any organization’s success. Often they are not recognized as such. Therefore, their employers don’t focus on their health and well-being. But employers who take measures to ensure their employees’ health and well-being have a much healthier and more dedicated staff.
Taking steps like ensuring work-life balance, providing nutritious meals, encouraging breaks and sick days, and avoiding overwork help employees and employers.
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