Not all corporate wellness programs have to be expensive affairs—especially if you’re a small business with only a few employees. If you’re just dipping your toes into the wellness sphere to see what kind of a difference it can make, these are a few frugal wellness ideas in the workplace that you can use right now.
Give one (or better, a few) a try and see the changes a wellness focus can create:
If you work in an office environment, or any other job that includes a lot of sitting down or lack of activity, you can suffer from some nasty maladies. Repetitive stress syndrome and poor posture are just the start. Set aside 10 minutes of the work day for the whole office to get together and do some basic stretches to warm up their muscles.
A few dollars spent every week on fresh fruit and vegetables is a small price to pay for improved health amongst your employees. These healthy snacks can improve psychological wellbeing in just two weeks, not to mention the well-established physical benefits.
Health is a complicated subject at the best of times, and that goes double when you’re a busy worker with little time to educate yourself fully. Do the work for your employees and send out a short, regular newsletter containing tips and tricks to improve their daily health. Try including some office-relevant stretching exercises, a meal plan or two or some local, healthy events.
Here’s a surprising fact: standing desks don’t have much going for them in the fight against obesity. However, standing rather than sitting while you work does have some other benefits. It tends to help out with blood sugar levels and reduce the risk of shoulder and back pain---still worth it in our opinion, especially considering how cheap it is to implement.
Eye strain is a serious concern for a workforce that is increasingly exposed to computer, tablet and phone screens. Provide some simple tips for reducing eye strain, which can be as easy as just taking a break from staring at the screen and focusing on something in the distance instead. Cheap, easy, and effective.
Company sports team are a great way for people to get more fit and socialise at the same time. You don’t even need to subsidise it directly, simply support it: let people know about it, perhaps take on some of the organising workload---you’ll reap the benefits of improved workplace relationships as well as greater wellness.
How long do you spend in meetings? According to one survey, about 31 hours on average every single month. Almost a day and a half straight spent talking about roadblocks or upcoming plans! Catch-ups are important, certainly, but wouldn’t it be better to put that time to work improving your health too? Take a walk instead of sitting at a table, and you’ll be tripling the time the average Kiwi spends exercising a month.
The average New Zealander spends about 40 minutes every day driving to work; that gets even higher if they have to walk as well, and even worse if they catch public transport. Extrapolate that out to an annual basis, and people end up spending almost a week straight stuck travelling! That’s less time to relax, less time to spend with their families and less time to relieve stress. Consider implementing flexible work hours and remote working so they can spend less time travelling and more time enjoying life, and you’ll find that their work performance and mental health improves as a result.
Earlier, we disparaged the amount of time that people spend in meetings, but what’s really important is to avoid wasting time in meetings. Making sure that people aren’t overworked or overstressed isn’t what we’d call wasting time. Try starting a morning huddle or ”stand-up” where people can express if they need help or guidance with their work from the team. This will reduce the amount of mental burn out that people suffer from when they are overburdened and don’t have an opportunity to express it.
Plants in the office have been shown to improve productivity by more than 15 per cent. That’s a fact. People find that they are better able to concentrate and are more satisfied with their workplace when you get a few green, leafy additions---not to mention the increase in air quality. Considering the cost of a few pot plants, a few minutes of watering and a few dollars at the local garden centre, it’s a cheap, smart addition to your office.
Last but certainly not least, there’s the all-important work-life balance and the elimination of workaholism. It’s great to have people who are working hard for you, but there comes a point where over-working actually ends up harming productivity. People get burned out, tired and their quality of work drops rapidly as a result. Which would you prefer: somebody who works for 12 hours a day but only does good work for 4 hours of it, or somebody who works 6 to 8 hours a day but every minute is of a decent quality? Make sure people go home on time consistently, and don’t encourage long working days: it only harms your business in the long term.
These measures are a great start to including wellness seriously in your business---but there’s only so far that they will take you. There will come a point when you need to take it to the next level as your company grows.
To find out more about wellness programmes and your business, download our free ebook below!