Wellbeing at Work: Ideas for a Healthier Workplace: PositivePsychology.com
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2020) estimate that US employers lose $36.4 billion a year due to missed days of work.
Drivers of these absences include a range of health conditions and risk factors, including high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity, and obesity (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2020).
The costs of mental health challenges are rising too, with estimates suggesting that mental illness and substance abuse cost US businesses between $80 and $100 billion annually (Sime, 2019).
If you’re a manager or leader looking for ways to support your workers’ health and wellbeing, look no further. In this article, we’ll present a clear business case for investing in employee wellness and point you toward useful questionnaires and interventions you can put into practice today.
How to Improve Wellbeing at Work: 6 Tips
Looking for ways to improve wellbeing in your workplace? Consider the following tips as useful starting points:
Aim to create an overall safety climate that involves and informs all members of the organization regarding occupational health and safety, rather than just targeting interventions at managers and supervisors (Neal & Griffin, 2006).
If you’re an organizational leader, speak with your vendor about having employee mental healthcare included in your company’s insurance plan, knowing that the benefits will likely offset additional costs (Attridge, 2008).
One study has found that providing a weekly fruit box for staff, particularly when the fruit is available for free, significantly increases staff members’ average nutrition intake (Pescud et al., 2016).
If you run an on-site canteen, consider working with a certification body to help label healthier options. Doing so has been shown to have positive nutritional effects by reducing consumption of calorie-dense foods (Lassen et al., 2014).
Provide end-of-trip facilities (e.g., showers, lockers, bike storage) to support and encourage staff using non-motorized methods of transport to get to and from work.
Provide access to occupational health checks, as these have been linked to early identification of health problems, positive dietary changes, increases in physical activity, and reduced smoking and alcohol consumption (Blake, Bennett, & Batt, 2014).
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