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Since there is no substitute for happy and healthy employees, here are 3 resolutions that every company should stick with all year long.
Giving workers access to a gym, providing healthy snacks, setting up a running club: there are many options to improve health and happiness at work among your employees. And it is a profitable investment! In addition to the high costs that tend to be incurred by sick leaves, a happy and healthy employee is much more productive.
“And if everybody is more energetic while also feeling supported and recognized, the company’s performance will increase”, said Jeane Day, General Manager of the Groupe Entreprise en Santé, which supports executives and managers in integrating global health and well-being best practices at work.
“Among others, investing in health shows a recognition of the importance that the employee holds, which creates a sense of belonging and a desire to do more for the company.” - Jeane Day
The three resolutions to adopt in order to encourage global health, according the Jeane Day? Here they are!
Health Resolution #1 – Consult your Employees
The first resolution can be resumed with a single keyword: dialogue. “Before investing 20,000$ in furnishing a gym, you have to make sure that it will get used. Is it a real need? In order to answer that, there is but one way to go: a participatory approach”, according to Jeane Day.
The ways of surveying employees’ desires are as many as they are effective:
- Round-table discussions
- Questionnaires
- Surveys created with Web-based software
Who knows, maybe your team has an impressive number of aspiring soccer players, and you don’t even suspect it.
Health Resolution #2 – Empower your Employees
According to statistics published by Sun Life, 84% of Canadians think that their company has a role to play in maintaining or improving their physical health; this number hikes up to 86% when talking about of mental health. Employees also have responsibility in this matter.
“It is important to properly define the sharing of responsibilities. If an employer, after consulting his workforce, creates a yoga class during lunch hour, it would be desirable that employees do, in fact, participate.”
In order to spread the word among workers, once again, the secret is actually discussing it.
Health Resolution #3 – Have a Global Approach to Health Prevention
When thinking about health, healthy lifestyle habits quickly come to mind: eating well, exercising. But health includes several other elements that can be separated into four:
- Healthy lifestyle habits
- Work-life balance
- Work environment
- Management practices
“You have to act upon all of these elements in order to have a significant impact on personnel health”, states Jeane Day. Providing stress management training, incorporating flexible schedules, setting up relaxation areas, ensuring efficient communication between managers and employees: different dimensions have to be considered in order to create a work environment where health and happiness prevail.
“We often forget that best practices in management have a large influence on the employees’ psychological well-being”, Day highlights.
You have a lot to gain by making sure that your workers receive the recognition they deserve, that no interpersonal conflict sabotages team spirit, and that every person performs their tasks in line with their competencies.
It’s worth remembering: adopting practices that aim to improve habits and work environment is very lucrative for any company. According to the information available on the Groupe Entreprises en Santé website, each dollar invested in a global health program that is well-structured and based on best practices can generate up to 5$ in productivity gains in the five years following its implementation.
It’s worth it for the company, sure – but first and foremost, employees are the ones winning!
