5 tips for a healthier workplace

For any business the main factor that determines profitability is the productivity of its staff. So if you’re a business owner than making sure that your staff are happy and healthy is essential if you’re to have staff who are reliable and effect. So with all that in mind we look at 5 ways that you can promote a healthier workforce.

5. Organise pre/post work workouts

Workouts needn’t be the all out, hard-core routines of the local gym, instead they can be games such as 5 aside football or badminton. This is also a great way of getting a bit of a team bonding session going.

4. Encourage people to walk up the stairs

This sounds like an extremely simple tip that won’t have much of an impact upon your work place’s health. However if you start paying attention to how many times in any one day you use the elevator yourself you’ll soon realise just how much you rely on it to move you from A to B!

3. Swap your office chairs for exercise balls

Back problems are the singular biggest issue facing employers and time off work through injury. A leading reason for the almost epidemic levels of off-sick employees with bad backs can be attributed to people sitting with bad postures throughout an 8 hour day. A great way to avoid this and promote better posture is to swap the office chairs for exercise balls every now and then. These make sure that people have to sit with their back straight (otherwise they risk falling off!).

2. Ensuring that your staff get the recommended time away from their computer

Legally employers are required to provide those that work at computers with a 20 minute break every four hours, however, as many will appreciate, this doesn’t always happen. Whilst many think that skipped breaks increases the productivity of staff, in fact it actually encourages lethargy and tiredness. In particular, a breath of fresh air can help your staff get a much needed refreshment, particularly on a gloomy Monday morning.

To make sure that your staff are taking the breaks they should, you should ensure that the workplace has a set break rota and people overseeing the breaks.

1. Encouraging your staff to drink more water

Dehydration is far more detrimental to a person’s health and performance than most people imagine. www.aqua-vitae.co.uk is one company that offer water filters to ensure people have a clean, tasty source of water in the workplace. As well as this, it’s also far easier to become dehydrated than most think; to avoid dehydration, a person should be drinking around 1-2 litres of fluid each day. This equates to around eight 150ml glasses. And the effects of not doing so can include: lethargy, mild confusion, headaches, dizziness, dry mouth, eyes and lips.

If you’d like to help your staff in drinking more water and becoming more energetic then water coolers are essential. Aqua Vitae can install and fully manage your workplace’s water coolers and make sure that your staff have cool, refreshing water to hand all day every day.