Creating a Healthy Company Culture

As a business owner, you have a lot of different roles to play. One of your main responsibilities, when you run a company is to look after the safety and welfare of your employees, and a key part of this is creating and embracing a healthy company culture. There are numerous reasons why you should focus on this goal as business owners. Firstly, it might just help you avoid a lawsuit. If you are not looking after the health and safety of your employees and they get injured, or they are affected by the ethics you hold running your business, you could face a lawsuit. Then there is the case for efficiency and hard work.

Research does show that when we eat well, for instance, we are happier. And, in a whistle, while you work type situation, it does seem as if a happy worker, works harder. It’s a fascinating example of why employers should pay attention to job satisfaction levels in their business. Of course, this isn’t the only way the health of a team of employees could impact business. You may also want to consider efficiency levels. It’s no secret that healthier people will be able to work at a more efficient rate. They won’t be held back by issues that vary as extensively as chronic pain to deep levels of stress.

Now that we have explored some of the benefits let’s look at some of the ways that you can create a healthy company culture in your business.

Keep An Open Dialogue

If you want to keep your company healthy, you must remember to keep an open dialogue with the people who work for you. They may have both ideas about how to improve the situation in your office and issues about things that they believe are affecting their health. An example of this might include food options. Your office might be situated in an area where the only places to eat for lunch could be fast food restaurants and takeaway. This is not ideal, and if this is the case, you might want to offer your employees an alternate suggestion, particularly if they bring up the possibility.

You could work with a catering company to provide lunch each day for your employees and ensure that they have a better option for dining halfway through the day. If you’re worried about the expense of this possibility, you may simply want to offer your employees healthy snacks in the kitchen of your office. This won’t be as expensive as hiring a full catering service. The important thing here is to make sure you are listening to what your employees want.

Goals In The Right Order

You might think that you want your employees to work as fast as possible with a low number of breaks, but actually, you don’t. This is going to lead to RSI, and you should not embrace or encourage this type of behaviour. Instead, you should look into the possibility of encouraging breaks through work. Believe it or not, this is actually going to both keep your employees healthy and improve efficiency. Workers who don’t suffer from RSI are far more efficient when working, particularly when using technology.

Create A Flexible Environment

You need to make sure that you have a flexible work environment that allows employees to operate in the way that is best for their health. A recent research study showed evidence that sitting for long periods could be just as detrimental to an individual’s health as smoking. As such, you may want to look into the possibility of adjustable desks for the office or laptop support desks. This will allow employees to stand up or sit down while working as they please. It will ensure that employees won’t be stuck in a chair, staring at a screen all day.

As well as providing flexibility in the workplace, you should make sure that you are doing what you can to protect the health or your workers with the right equipment. For instance, chairs with the proper back support can greatly reduce the chances of RSI.

Encourage Exercise And Fitness

You may want to try and encourage fitness inside and outside of work for your employees. One of the ways that you can do this is to plan team building days outside of office hours that encourage being active. This could include team building activities where workers participate in fun activities such as mountain biking, rafting and rock climbing. Of course, some workers will not always be thrilled with this idea if it takes time away from their family. As such, you can have family work days do where employees and their families can come together and participate in fun activities that get the blood pumping.

Alternatively, you could just form a partnership with a gym for your employees. By doing this, you can offer it as an incentive for new workers that you may recruit. By offering free gym membership when new workers join your team, you are sending a clear message that your business embraces and encourages healthy living.

Happy And Healthy

As we mentioned a happy worker will work harder. That’s why you want to keep a check on issues that are affecting happiness in the office like stress. How can you combat stress in the office? Well, you need to make sure that each employee knows their role and that they have someone to talk to if they are feeling emotionally drained. Remember, if a worker is unhappy their level of productivity will be lowered and their overall health will be affected. In a recent survey, 40 percent of workers reported their job was very or extremely stressful. Business owners need to be doing more to lower this number and ensuring that the work is not getting the best of their team.

We hope you find this advice useful when building a healthy company culture in your office. There are lots of different directions to take here, but the important thing to remember is that it won’t just benefit your team of employees. It will benefit your business as well.

7 years ago

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