Many companies across the globe report an increased trend of absenteeism and early retirement rates as a result of mental health problems such as depression and stress. This eventually costs them thousands to millions of dollars every year due to the high number of lost working days. For this reason, both employers and employees need to create the perfect workspace where everyone can thrive.
When it comes to promoting health and well-being in the workplace, it’s not as costly as it may seem. Cultivating a workplace environment that promotes healthy living can save your company money in the long run. Organizations looking to make changes to their culture with the main intention of promoting health and well-benefits have numerous options to choose from. Here are some ways to make this a reality for your workplace.
- Make Downtime a Priority
There’s no way your employees can offer their all every time without making do with fatigue and mental distress. To improve their productivity levels, offer relaxation time at least once during the day. By making downtime a priority, your workforce will have ample time to recuperate, rebuild focus and work with even more vigor.
This does not mean you should command on how they can use their downtime. Instead, give them the freedom to focus on what makes them feel better. Your team members can take this as the perfect opportunity to catch up with other employees, take a brief power nap, opt for fitness classes, or even eat healthy snacks.
- Fitness for Duty Evaluations
Employers tend to struggle when they have to make confident and informed personnel decisions that not only protect and foster workplace safety and wellbeing, but also improve the productivity levels of their team. This affects the performance of their business thus losing its competitive advantage.
Rather than taking a standard, ‘one size fits all’ approach, you need to settle on the right fitness for duty evaluations to promote workplace safety and wellbeing. You can pull this off successfully by evaluating their work capacity, both mental and physical, or offer face-to-face clinical interview of the employee. Of course, you can seek the help of professionals in the field of workplace behavioral health and safety if you are to have an easy ride.
- Offer Opportunities for Health Education
At times, your workforce may not understand what it takes to create the healthiest version of themselves with the limited time they have each day. Add work to families and extracurricular activities, getting time to focus on their mental health and well-being becomes more of an option rather than a priority.
By going out of your way and providing opportunities for health education, you will certainly promote mental health in the workplace. You can bring in educational speakers, and help your employees learn what it takes to keep their mental health in check. To encourage attendance, give them the chance of taking classes during the day.