A Healthy Workforce Translates Into Higher Productivity in Your Business
Employees are the heartbeat of your business. They are the ones who give their best every day to help you meet daily goals. They are the ones who ensure your business thrives in a fierce market. This is why you need to take care of them – according to research, business efforts to create a culture of well-being eventually pay off, resulting in higher productivity and reduced health costs.
In fact, case studies suggest that enterprises with healthy and happy workers are more lucrative than competitors, demonstrating superior performance.
It’s pretty obvious, right?
Employees can only perform at their best when they feel inspired, motivated, and, above all, HEALTHY.
And it’s not just their physical health that should be a priority, but their mental health as well. As an employer, you should be responsible for keeping track of how your staff feels at the workplace.
And there are a few simple ways to promote a healthy workforce, but we will look at them later. First, Let’s understand the link between employee health and well-being, and productivity.
A Healthy Workforce Isn’t a Nice-to-have, It’s a Necessity
Having healthy employees should come as a priority for every business owner because this is what lays the foundation of great performance, thus translating into a company that excels in what it does. Sustainable performance mainly consists of two important things:
- Competence: the skills your employees bring to the company;
- Capacity: the energy levels required to use their competence to meet your company goals.
Now, it’s important to remember that, above anything else, employees are humans, which means no matter how skilled they are, they can’t excel at work if they are sick, tired, overwhelmed, and so on.
They lack the capacity to perform, which is entirely understandable. This is why building a healthy workforce is so important, as it connects to the ability of your company to run its operations smoothly.
Prioritizing employee health and well-being does make a difference, and we have stats that prove it. For example, in a manufacturing company that allowed employees to stretch before their shift started, there has been a 50% decrease in work-related injuries.
Moreover, the compensation costs for workers decreased by $800,000. Moreover, it has been demonstrated that companies with cultures of health experience 11% lower turnover.
These are excellent benefits that directly impact the company’s efficiency, but they won’t come to you unless you take action and transform your organization’s culture into one that will make employees feel happy and safe.
Tips For Ensuring a Healthy Workforce
Promote clean, hazard-free workspaces
Hazards at the workplace can be dangerous for your employees, leading to severe accidents that can leave your staff with physical injuries and emotional scars.
According to PersonalInjuryClaimsUK.org.uk, you have a duty of care to ensure the workplace is safe for employees, and if you don’t take this responsibility seriously, not only will you lose top talent, but you could also face legal consequences( and there’s no business out there that wants to deal with something like this!).
Therefore, you should maintain a clean and safe workspace and encourage employees to do the same. If they notice something that could pose a threat, encourage them to report it immediately so you can take the necessary action.
Encourage Employees To Stay Active
Encouraging physical activity is an excellent way to look after your employees’ health. This can play a massive role in boosting their productivity, as it helps ensure they take less time off due to sick days.
There are different ways to do so, such as offering fitness benefits or a gym membership and allowing employees to take a one-hour break for lunch so that they also get to walk a little besides just eating.
While it’s true that incentivizing physical activity can be costly, it’s important (and rewarding) to do it, as it will help employees prevent many illnesses that could interfere with their ability to perform at work.
Offer Flexible Work Schedules
As a business owner, it only makes sense to want to meet your objectives, but that shouldn’t make you forget that life doesn’t revolve around work, and many other things matter to employees, such as spending time with their family or making time for hobbies.
This is why it is essential to provide flexible work schedules, allowing your team to find a balance between their work life and personal life.
Flexibility at work allows employees to take better care of their health in different ways. For example, they can seek preventive care, which helps them maintain their health, instead of taking time off work to visit the doctor when a problem arises.
Ultimately, offering flexible work schedules is also an advantage to you because it boosts employee engagement and retention while also helping you lower your expenses.
Do Mental Health Check-ins With Your Employees
Mental health is just as important as physical health, so you should also make it a priority to check how your employees are feeling.
Stress management is an important part of a healthy workforce, and you don’t want to ignore it, because doing so could affect your team’s performance.
Employees could feel stressed for many reasons, such as the pressure to meet expectations, taking on too much work, commuting, and workplace conditions.
But employees could also deal with outside stressors that don’t have anything to do with work, and even in such situations, it’s essential to let them know they are supported.
Create a safe space at the workplace by encouraging employees to talk openly about what stresses them out and provide resources for counseling.
The Bottom Line
Taking care of your employees shows them that they matter and that you see them as humans above anything else.
Ultimately, it’s what will differentiate you from other companies with a poor culture, where teams feel overworked, stressed, unsupported, and unfulfilled with their roles.
You can’t just expect employees to be productive without doing anything to achieve that.
So, follow the tips discussed above, and you’ll see how your company will transform, experiencing increased employee morale and retention and better productivity.
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