As the owner of a business, one of the best things you can do is focus on the health of your employees. This might seem strange – surely the best thing you can do is focus on your clients, and making more money? Those things are important, but focusing on employee health should not be underestimated. It’s simple, really: if you want a thriving business, you should have healthy, thriving employees.

Here, we’re going to talk about why employee health should matter to you and what you can do to put more of a focus on it.

Employee Turnover

Let’s talk about employee turnover first. Many businesses experience a high level of employee turnover, and this can be for various reasons. However, many fail to make the connection between their approach to their employees health and the amount of people that are leaving! Perhaps an employee is not engaged or thriving in their position at work, or the atmosphere within the workplace isn’t motivating or inspiring to them. High employee turnover can have many negative effects on a business. You get less work done when your employees leave,

And you have to spend more time hunting for the right replacements and training them up. There may be a shortage of talent in the local area, so you may have to settle for somebody that isn’t right just because you really need more hands on deck. You want people who feel happy working for you, and you want the work environment to be a great place to be. After all, most of your employees will spend a large portion of their lives here.

Focusing on health and wellbeing, both physical and mental, can help you to reduce employee turnover and create a better atmosphere/company culture.

Being More Productive

Focusing on health and wellbeing does far more than just make your employee happy at work, however. Promoting health will more than likely make your team more productive, too. Healthier employees are shown to regularly outperform those who are in organisations which do not promote health and wellbeing. Let that sink in for a second. Studies have proven that healthier employees outperform unhealthier employees across various organizations! It’s an outdated attitude to believe that investing in employee health schemes and even Health and safety consultants is a waste of money. These things will more than pay for themselves in terms of output and how much your team is getting done. Health should be a part of every company culture. You will get more done, reduce turnover, create a better atmosphere, stop wasting money, save time, and so much more.

Reducing Workplace Stressors

Focusing on reducing workplace stressors can be a great way to begin showing employees that you care. You can’t do their jobs for them, but there are likely a few changes you can make in order to reduce stressors. For example, would it be beneficial to invest in better equipment? Is there a piece of software you could invest in to make certain processes easier, or automate them completely? Listening to your team will go a long way to helping you. You’ll also be able to nip any issues in the bud before they get further along. For example, disputes between employees can slow work down and create a frosty atmosphere. When your employees don’t feel so stressed, they will likely take less sick days, enjoy work more, and put out a better quality of work, amongst other things.

Provide Mental Health Support For Your Team

Mental health is very real. Just because you cant see it, or may never have experienced it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put a focus on it. You never know what members of your team are going through mentally, so providing mental health support can ensure they have the emotional support they need to deal with whatever they are going through.

Many companies make the mistake of ignoring mental health issues within their employees. They don’t allow mental health days, or put an emphasis on de-stressing. This will lead to more sick days in general, and perhaps even lower morale company-wide. Providing mental health support can completely turn things around.

Encouraging Staff To Be More Physically Active

Encouraging staff to be more physically active can also impact their working day; getting some exercise can greatly improve things like energy levels, motivation, mindset, and productivity. Many companies now provide their employees with gym memberships as a result. However, there are a number of other things you can do. You could potentially offer incentives for employees who walk/bike to walk (as this is also better for the environment), provide healthy snacks/refreshments, and arrange team building days that involve physical activity.

Many Chronic Diseases Are Preventable

Studies now suggest that sitting is the new cancer. Many people are sitting for huge portions of the day due to their work. This can lead to chronic diseases in the long term, which costs the healthcare system, as well as your business if your employee needs time off because of it. By encouraging healthy lifestyles, many illnesses can be prevented. Things like heart disease, stroke, cancer and obesity can potentially be prevented with a healthier lifestyle.

Get Creative With Incorporating Health Incentives and Plans

Corporate wellness should never be boring. Unique programs will help to ensure long term success and happy employees. People need to be challenged in different ways, so bear this in mind as you put the plans together.

Conclusion

As you can see, focusing on employee health is one of the most effective things you can do, especially if you start doing it right at the beginning. You’ll create a better company culture and atmosphere, more loyal employees, more output, a higher quality of work, reduced turnover, fewer sick days, and so much more. You really can’t underestimate the power that focusing on health can have on your business.

How will you start to incorporate more health incentives and plans into your corporation? Leave a comment below.