4 Ways to Institute a Health Initiative at Your Small Business

According to WELCOA, employees in small businesses have fewer benefits than those working in larger companies. This makes your employees less effective, and it can affect their long-term health and fitness. While it's not your job to make employees eat healthier, offering healthy options for employees who want to improve their lives can go a long way toward improving employee satisfaction.

Encouraging Exercise at Work

Large companies offer fitness facilities, healthy eating options and the ability to customize the work environment to maintain a high level of activity. It's important to bridge the gap between helping to improve employee well-being and adding additional pressure to an already stressed work regimen. Simple options for making it possible for employees to stand at their desk instead of sitting can go a long way toward helping employees get into better shape.

You don't need to install a fitness center to promote healthy employees, but you can offer incentives for employees to work out. Let your employees leave an hour early three times a week to get to the gym. You can do this on the honor system or ask them to get a stamp from the fitness center to prove they went to the gym.

Healthy Eating Options

Employees who need a quick snack need to be able to get healthy options at work. When you're hungry, you tend to reach for the first sugary snack you see. By offering vending machines that offer fresh sandwiches, salads and other healthy foods, you can help your employees avoid the crash that comes with eating high amounts of sugar. A vending machine service can make it possible to bring healthy food options to your company. You may not be able to provide several healthy eating establishments, but you can help ensure that employees have healthy options available to them while at work.

Revamp the Break Room

When possible, consider getting exercise equipment for the break room. Create a more comfortable seating area for employees to sit and mingle. It's been shown that employees who talk to each other at work have less stress and enjoy work more. When you consider how much time employees spend at work, their colleagues understandably become like a second family.

Make the work environment comfortable and give your employees a place to relax and unwind when they aren't busy working. Even a 20-minute nap can help employees to become more productive at work. You don't have to completely eliminate all stress in the workplace. A certain amount of stress acts as a good motivator. However, you should aim to give your employees an environment that helps them excel.

Using Wearable Technology

You'll want to work out the legal implications of tracking employee fitness levels at work with your legal department, but giving your employees fitness trackers can be a good way to promote health. Employees will be able to monitor their heart rate and make changes based on how their heart is responding.

Activity trackers can help employees set goals for fitness during the day. They can serve as a reminder to get up away from their desks every now and then. Meeting a minimum number of steps per workday can encourage employees to stay active and keep moving throughout the day. Just seeing that they have met their activity goals for the day can trigger a release of dopamine and encourage positive attitudes to the workplace.

The best way to improve the workplace is by letting the employee choose for themselves how they manage their health. You can't force healthy choices on your employees, but giving them the option to choose can make it easier for them to make good choices.