03 Oct 2019

Three ways to help employees lead healthier lives

The physical health of your employees will not only have an impact on their day-to-day lives, but it can also affect how they perform at work. Poor employee health in any business can lead to absenteeism, presenteeism and will likely cause employees to feel unmotivated and disengaged.

To tackle this, businesses should support their employees’ physical health and encourage them to make small lifestyle changes, to ensure they feel their absolute best every day. So, what can you do?

We’ve come up with three simple things your business can do to help your employees get active, eat healthier, and be more conscious of their physical health.

Make healthy food and drinks accessible
If you have biscuits, chocolate and sweets dotted around the office, it’s fairly likely your employees are going to choose to snack on them as opposed to healthier, more nutritious food. Sugary snacks are tasty and provide us with a short-term energy spike, but too much of it will cause weight gain and is linked to an increased risk of serious health issues such as heart disease and diabetes. So, help your employees make healthier choices by simply making healthy food and drinks easily accessible to them at work.

For example, if your business has vending machines, fill them with nutritious snacks rather than sugary treats, if you have an on-site canteen, make sure there are plenty of healthy options available. You could also place bowls of fresh fruit around your business so employees can help themselves whenever they fancy a snack. You might even want to invest in some water coolers, so employees are encouraged to stay hydrated throughout the day. These are small changes that will make a big difference to the choices your employees make.

Obviously, when an employee celebrates a birthday, there really is no replacement for a celebratory cake, but you can ensure that employees always have the option to choose from a wide range of healthy food to make it easier for them to look after their wellbeing.

Start a competition
As we all know, a great way to motivate people is to add an element of healthy competition to the mix. So, why help your employees get into healthier habits by giving them all a clear goal to work towards.

For example, you could run a competition to incentivise your employees to walk more throughout the day. You could give out awards every week or month to the employees who have done the most steps. You could even create an online leaderboard to share around the business to show employees how well they’re doing compared to their colleagues. This will make employees feel more accountable for their health and conscious of the level of activity they’re doing every day.

At peoplevalue, we run a weight loss competition at the beginning of every year to encourage our employees to kickstart healthier lifestyles following the indulgence of Christmas. Our employees are not in any way obligated to get involved, but it’s a fun and light-hearted way of giving people that extra push they need to make small lifestyle changes.

Discounted gym memberships
Some of your employees might want to embark on a fitness journey but may be discouraged by the price of gym memberships, which can often be expensive. Providing your employees with discounted gym memberships is therefore a valuable benefit that will make it easier for your employees to pursue their fitness goals.

Providers such as Incorpore can offer voucher-based or discount code schemes that give employees in the UK the opportunity to benefit from discounted gym memberships at thousands of gyms, leisure centres, health clubs and class studios.

This article is provided by peoplevalue.