4 ways to use benefits to promote physical wellbeing at work
Improving employees’ physical health can have positive benefits for your business, courtesy of heightened focus, better cognitive function and all-round improved performance.
1. Exercise
Physical activity isn’t only good for the waistline. The NHS describes it as ‘the miracle cure we’ve always had’, with regular exercisers having a lower risk of developing many long-term conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke and some cancers.
Exercise is also credited with helping stimulate and balance hormones, helping cut stress, improving mood and memory, potentially alleviating menopause symptoms, as well as helping manage other long-term fluctuating conditions.
The current advice is to undertake 150 minutes of physical activity a week.
One way to encourage this could be to set a Fake Commute Challenge, with homeworkers taking a pre-work walk every day for a week. Or suggest walking, rolling or ‘moving around’ meetings — and if these take place during online meetings it opens up the opportunity for hybrid and home workers to get involved too.
Encourage workers to take regular screen breaks and follow the 40-20 rule – sitting for a maximum of 40 mins and standing and moving around for the next 20 mins.
This is especially important, with workers reporting a steady increase in musculoskeletal problems since June 2019. These bone, muscle, soft tissue, tendon and ligament issues can be caused by poor posture, lack of regular exercise or a poor workplace setup — and were responsible for just over 13% of sickness absence in 2021.
Ensure employees know the importance of correct screen positioning and provide them with a separate mouse and keyboard. A good office chair can be a postural gamechanger and consider providing sit-to-stand desks — standing uses more muscles than sitting, increases blood flow and burns more calories.
2. A healthy challenge
Show your employees you’re serious about helping them stay physically well, by setting up an employee-centred wellbeing committee. Draw up a calendar of wellbeing events targeted at the key areas affecting your employees and ensure to include measurement of both health outcomes and engagement so you know how to enhance them next time and keep the mix exciting.
Introduce forums, promote and run webinars and set up employee wellbeing challenges. Use these to bring the workforce together and make them as social as possible. These activities should be accessible to all staff, so consider ways to include and assist those employees who are physically challenged.
3. Food for thought – and work
You can’t tell people what to eat, but you can offer them good choices. Providing healthy options in your canteen is a priority (and vending machines don’t have to be full of chocolate and crisps).
Many of us rely on caffeine to help wake us up, but too much tea and coffee can lead to dehydration, which can affect cognitive performance and mood. Caffeine can also cause headaches, increased heart rate, raised blood pressure and insomnia.
All employers must provide employees access to clean drinking water but why not go beyond simple tap water, with a chilled dispenser and reusable, branded bottles? Or offer a vending machine with healthy hydration choices. Last year, Unum’s Wellbeing Committee ran a Hydration Challenge — ‘gamifying’ the drinking of eight glasses of water a day, which received great engagement with the posts viewed over 2,000 times.
4. Put the power in their hands
Employer-provided digital wellbeing apps that include remote GP access and online physiotherapy can help employees to manage physical issues.
Similarly, a benefits package that includes an employee assistance programme (EAP) could bring staff discounts on external gym memberships, or even savings on supermarket food shops and meal subscription services.
And with the increasing cost of fuel and the impact on the environment of driving, a Cycle to Work scheme might make a welcome addition to that package too.
Employers who proactively promote, and help manage, their employees’ physical health and wellbeing can reap the benefits of healthier, happier workforces — employees who are better able to focus on the job in hand and be their most productive at work.
