There’s more to leading a healthier lifestyle than going to the gym, eating more vegetables and getting more sleep. While these are obviously all important, health and wellbeing is also something that needs to be considered at work. That means ensuring employees are not overly stressed, overworked and burned out. It also means encouraging them to make healthy choices. There are countless benefits in doing so. These include:

Reduced health risks (like illness)
Decreased absenteeism
Better workplace focus, efficiency, and productivity
Improved employee retention

With this in mind, you need to know how to create a healthy workplace:

Overtime and hours worked

The truth is that long weeks and excess overtime leaves employees stressed out, demotivated and can lead to burnout or a higher staff turnover rate. It’s crucial to restrict, or at the very least monitor, overtime and the best way to do this is to implement a policy that ensures staff are not overworked.

A strong social network is one of the key factors when it comes to employees’ happiness, which directly impacts their overall health and wellbeing. That’s not to say you should involve yourself in your staff’s family and friend groups but you could consider offering a social club with monthly events or subsidising a weekly lunch.

Health insurance

While providing medical aid to employees should not be the end-all of your workplace health initiatives, it is an easy and effective way to ensure the health and wellbeing of your staff. A bonus is that many plans include free regular screenings, check-ups, and vaccinations, all of which can help improve individual health outcomes.

Meditation and mindfulness

Mental health is as equally important as physical health, which is why offering mindfulness and meditation classes are important. More and more companies are offering meditation classes to their employees as a way of contributing to good mental health. Another option is to consider offering some form of confidential counselling services.

Gym memberships

You do not have to subsidise the full membership, many companies meet their employees half way, offering to subsidise 50% of a gym membership instead. This is a great way to get accountability from your team as they are also paying for the gym membership.

Wellness days

The idea behind offering wellness days is to give employees the chance to decompress, recharge, and take care of their mental health so that they can return to work in the right headspace. These days are in addition to regular paid time off and sick days.

It’s admittedly not always easy keeping track of leave, especially if done manually. You need to be sure it’s in adherence to the BCEA, and you need to make sure employees are using their leave and that they are not going below or above the days they have accumulated. This is why using an online leave management system is so important.

Benefits of an online leave management system

Using an online leave management system can solve these problems and make the whole process of tracking leave easier and smoother, ultimately saving you time and stress so that you don’t have to worry about the burdens of leave.

If you would like to give it a try we can assist. LeavePro is offering a 14-day free trial. All you have to do is sign-up, or you can also book a demo to see how the system works.

Promoting a Healthier Workplace