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February 1, 2021
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Why Employee’s Wellbeing is Important?
A strong business is built on a safe and healthy workplace. While you can offer various perks to reward and compensate your employees, most of these do not look after their mental and physical wellbeing. Most employees spend more than 30 percent of their time at work. That’s why they need an office space that is healthy, safe, and compatible with the industry standards.
A recent Fellowes Workplace Wellness Trend Report showed that the majority of the employees value a healthy workplace. According to the report, a whopping 87 percent of employees wanted their employer to provide a healthier and safer workplace. Furthermore, around 93 percent of employees mentioned that they would be more likely to spend more time at work if they were provided with a healthier office space.
These numbers show that a safer workplace is one of the key components of looking after your employee’s wellbeing. This will help employees to perform better and be more productive.
Let’s take a look at 7 ways you can look after your employee’s wellbeing.
1. Be Strict with Kitchen Hygiene
Consuming food cooked in an unhygienic environment exposes your employees to a host of diseases, so your staff kitchen or break room needs to be kept as clean as possible. Every organization should have a checklist that is used by the facility management team to enforce the guidelines and rules. This includes routine disinfection, regular cleaning of surface areas, temperatures for storing raw materials, mandatory usage of gloves, suction capacity in the kitchen, and more. This will keep employees healthy and more productive. Organizations can also promote exemplary hygiene in eating areas through engaging specialized cleaning services.
2. Create a Wellness Room For your employee’s wellbeing
A wellness room is a private room within the workplace that is designed to address the personal needs of your employees. This room could be used by mothers for breastfeeding, for prayer, or for wellness activities like yoga. If nothing else, employees could simply use the space to take a break from work and relax.
A wellness room helps employees take some time off from their hectic schedules and recharge their batteries. This, in turn, will leave your staff rejuvenated and refreshed, and ready to give their best at work. Your wellness room should be decorated in soothing colors and with a suitable layout for all the activities that it will be used for.
3. Monitor Fire & Electrical Hazards
Hazards of any form can pose a threat to your employee’s safety and even their lives, along with your business’ property. Fires in the workplace can be deadly, and employees may survive with severe impacts to their health that affects the rest of their life. Common fire hazards in the workplace are linked to electrical short circuits, gas leakages, and external factors such as thunderstorms.
This can be addressed through proper maintenance of electrical systems, as well as periodic inspections, surveys, and risk assessments. Apart from this, fire alarms need to be tested periodically, and fire extinguishers need to be positioned in the right places. The best practice is to engage professionals like PHS Compliance who will help you to ensure that your workplace is compliant with safety standards and that you keep your business, employees, and visitors safe.
4. Set Up a Gym Corner for your employee’s wellbeing
Long work hours and pressing deadlines can prevent your staff from getting to the gym to work out. We know how important regular exercise is for people’s health and wellbeing, so you can promote this by setting up a small gym in the workplace. For example, an employee can take a short break with some steps on an elliptical machine kept in the corner, or maybe a few minutes of cycling. A brisk gym session will not only keep a person physically fit but will also promote mental wellness and better focus.
5. Bring Nature Indoors
There is nothing as soothing to the eyes as green plants and blue sky. While blue sky, can be found with just a glimpse out of the window, green plants can be difficult to find inside the office. You can combat this by bringing a little nature inside, such as with pot plants or other indoor greenery. This will improve your employee’s wellbeing, emotional as well as their energy levels.
6. Promote Better Nutrition
All too commonly, when deadlines loom, employees skip meals or snack on junk food, which can be detrimental to their health over the long term. As a result, employees will have less energy, health issues and ultimately feel demotivated. One solution to this is to provide healthy food in the workplace, such as healthy snacks or even full meals. You can also conduct activities that encourage staff to eat a healthy, balanced diet, such as giving seminars on healthy eating habits or even arranging for healthy cooking classes in the workplace!
7. Have a Breakout Area
Socializing can do a lot to improve mental health, and so providing a breakout area for your staff is critically important. Providing a breakout area where your staff can socialize over a cup of tea or coffee will promote better emotional wellbeing. This will also help employees build strong relationships with each other, promoting better teamwork.
Looking after your employee’s wellbeing has many benefits, not only looking are your staff for their own sake, but also promoting better productivity and therefore boosting your profits. It also helps to ensure you stay on top of your compliance with government regulations.
Wrapping up
Looking after your employee’s wellbeing is not only part of your duty of care to your staff, but it also benefits your business in a variety of ways. Employees that are happier and healthier will work more efficiently, making your business more productive and helping to increase your profits. Additionally, if you make dedicated efforts to look after your employee’s wellbeing this will be noticed and appreciated by your staff. In turn, this will build loyalty and decrease staff turn-over rates, all of which is good news for your business!
In short, your employee’s wellbeing is not only important for them but it’s critical for the success of your business, so boosting employee’s wellbeing is a win-win!
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