The Healthy Workplace: Reducing Sick Days for Your Employees

An apple a day may keep the doctor away, but having employees sick and out of work does the same for company revenue.  It costs to have employees sick and production down.  Smart CEOs invent ways to keep employees healthy and in tip-top shape.

Consider the following ways progressive owners are keeping revenue up and the number of sick employees down.

Better Insurance Coverage

Going to the doctor can be expensive if one’s health coverage is limited, especially regarding prescription drug coverage.  By providing employees with better health coverage, progressive CEOs are increasing the likelihood of doctor visits when workers are feeling lousy.  Actually, being a bit proactive ensures that no long spells of sickness occur.

On-Site Fitness and Wellness

Taking a nod from tech giants, Google and Twitter, CEOs are providing on-site exercise and wellness for employees.  Whether it’s yoga or pilates classes or organic food for lunch each day, owners find production rises when employees’ stomachs are filled and calories burning.  Speak to your human resources department and legal team about what kinds of fitness regimens should be offered, and if you need to be protected against liability.

Sleep and Relaxation

A number of businesses in the Eastern hemisphere let employees sleep and nap (some going as far as providing the chambers for them) during workdays.  There is scientific evidence behind taking occasional naps throughout the day, yet some owners may feel a bit sheepish regarding letting employees count sheep during hours of regular operation.  However, letting workers reserve a few moments for rest could have great effects.

Germ-Free Desks and Doors

Some anal-retentive employers swear by maintaining an especially clean working environment, paying cleaning crews to come in more often during winter months and seasons prone to sick employees.  Going ‘germ free’ is a tough goal to reach, but supplementing regular cleanings with anti-bacterial soaps in lavatories and 99.9 percent germ-free hand wash gels at each work station helps.

Since employees constantly use the same desks, doors, and office materials throughout the day, it’s easy for cohorts to exchange germs without knowing.  Supplement such facts with the likelihood that employees bring germs to work places from home, being extra concerned about germs may maintain healthy revenue streams.

Bring in Added Help

Sometimes, despite good intentions and credible evidence, people receive information better when it’s coming from authorities.  Rather than provide booklets and urging employees via word of mouth, employers hire health and wellness professionals as well as doctors to come in and speak with employees about proper ways to wash hands and maintain a germ-free work environment.  Hiring a professional commercial cleaner is a good way to keep workplace illness levels low.

For example, some may be shocked to realise that the amount of time they spend washing their hands is inefficient.  It takes about fifteen seconds or longer to ensure a thorough wash; it’s not unlikely to see someone quickly running hands underneath the faucet, not ridding hands of all collected germs.  The moment that employee steps out of the bathroom and grabs a door handle, touches a stapler, or shakes an cohort’s hand, the germ fest begins!

Terry Etherton is General Manager of Total Concept Cleaning, professional commercial cleaning contractors in Perth Western Australia. Follow Terry on Google+.

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