Without a shadow of a doubt, employees are the most precious asset of every organization. When you put effort into keeping your employees healthy, it can aid in increasing productivity. Also, it can encourage rewarding teamwork. Healthy staff means there’ll be fewer sick leaves. When there will be less absenteeism, you can accomplish organizational goals very easily. As an entrepreneur, it is your responsibility to generate a wellness plan for your employees. You can also seek help from your employees to make a health plan. In this article, you are going to find some of the suitable ways to encourage your employees to maintain good health. Just keep on reading this article to know some of the soulful ways to encourage better employee health in a workplace.
Are you running your own business or a franchise? If yes, then make sure your employees have sound health. For example: An education franchise in India flourished only because their owners keep a close check on their employees. As a franchise owner, it is your responsibility to take care of your employees and make them capable of working to their best. We all are well versed with the saying, ‘Health is wealth’. Note that good health of your employees can help you generate maximum wealth. If you are heedless of the best ways to encourage better employee health, then we can help you with that. This article is for neophyte franchisees who want to promote better employee health.
Here are some of the great ways through which you can encourage better employee health in a franchise:
Good health can help you reach the heights of success. So, make sure every employee of your franchise is healthy. Also, you can help them to stay healthy in the following ways.
- Focus on general prevention
We all are well acquainted with the fact that prevention is better than cure. So, get to know the overall factors that affect the health of your employees. Here is a list of few ways through which you can help your employees:
- Speak to your staff regarding common health issues. Also, you can arrange regular doctor visits to your organization.
- Offer rebates for vaccinations.
- Provide incentives on health insurance.
These little efforts can help you establish amicable relations with your staff. Also, you can earn their trust easily.
- Encourage healthier eating
Most of us are aware that eating well could deter future illnesses such as diabetes and cancer. But, did you know that, as shown in a study published in the science journal Population Health Management, improper diet is associated with a 66 percent increased chance of productivity loss? As a result, healthy eating leads to more productive employees — a win-win situation both for the employee and the organisation! Read the following points to know some of the best ways to encourage healthier eating:
- Allow staff to bring in healthy lunches from home by providing a refrigerator.
- Set out a fruit tray with free fruit.
- Purchase nutritious meals for team meetings.
- Replace unhealthy drinks in your employees’ refrigerators with healthier alternatives such as juices, smoothies, and so on.
- Install a juicer, blender, and sandwich press so that your employees may prepare their own lunches.
- Establish a healthy beverages policy for the workplace, as well as a smart catering policy.
- Provide and consider subsidising healthy food and drink options if you offer in-house catering.
- When planning catering, make sure you include healthy selections on all menus and limit harmful choices.
- Ensure that any vending machines on-site have water, minimal drinks and snacks.
- Create a smoke free workplace
We all know smoking is highly noxious to health. Thus, it is imperative to shun smoking if you want to have good health. You need to make your employees aware of the negative effects of smoking. So, go through the following points to know the best way to reduce smoking in the workplace:
- Motivate your staff to join the ‘quit smoking’ program.
- Ask your employees to consult a doctor for their smoking issue.
- Never allow your employees to smoke in office hours.
These are some of the simplest ways through which you can encourage your employees to get rid of smoking.
- Motivate your employees for physical exercise
Push your employees to exercise as a means to improve their overall health. Also, it doesn’t have to be expensive; there are numerous of low-cost options, such as:
- Give everyone on the team a wearable tracker like a Fitbit or Jawbone.
- Encourage walking meetings (anyone up for a walk around the block?)
- Allow for public transportation if it is available locally.
- Form an employee sports team and fund it.
- Encourage staff to participate in fun runs and charitable events.
- Add bike racks to your company’s parking lot.
- Offer gym membership to your employees.
- Motivate them to approach a yoga instructor.
- Improve mental health
Ever noticed, your productivity doubles when your mind is at peace. So, make sure every employee is at peace and is happy. Note that it is very simple to encourage better mental health in the franchise system. Some of the best ways are given as follows:
- Creating a mental health plan for the entire workplace
- Provide discounts to consult a counsellor if necessary.
- Encourage positive workplace communication
- Provide mental health training to managers.
- Conduct staff polls or surveys to obtain useful information on employee morale.
- Keep an eye on your coworkers and be aware of what to look out for.
- Have strategies in place to prevent workplace bullying and unprofessional behaviour.
- Invite a specialist to come in and provide all employees stress-reduction tips.
- Consider teaching a meditation class or scheduling weekly thinking time.
- Discourage long chair time
Over the course of 13 years, scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center studied the lifestyles of over 17,000 men and women in the United States and discovered that persons who sit for the majority of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks. Fifty-four percent, to be exact!
- Install standing desks (number 38).
- Set up bicycle seats
- Promote the use of stand-up meetings.
- Hire an expert to come in and assess your workplace’s ergonomics.
- Encourage your employees to take breaks throughout the day.
- Every day, do a 10-minute stretching routine (twice a day even better)
- Request that your employees take their lunch away from their computers.
Make sure you follow these tips if you are running a coaching franchise. For sure, it can help your employees to maintain good health.
Conclusion
We hope the aforementioned tips can help you develop a healthy culture in your franchise system. So, make sure you consider these health tips for your franchise.