Be A Business Owner That Takes Health & Wellness Seriously

Being a business owner comes with a lot of responsibilities. It’s easy to feel like that isn’t enough hours in the day to get each and every task completed. It’s far too easy to overwork yourself and to fail to spot the signs that you or one of your employees (if you have any) requires some help.

‘Wellness’ has become the buzzword of the business industry in 2016. With businesses of all shapes and sizes offering wellness programs and solutions. Many employers have decided to provide wellness programs for their teams. The reason for this is to help lower health insurance costs, become a sought after employer, and keep employees for longer. As well as to encourage a healthier and happier workforce.

Of course, it’s not just about keeping your employees healthy and happy. For many business owners, wellness is about helping to improve their health and happiness. As well as reducing stress and making it easier to work productively, it also lifts morale.

The good news is that when it comes to taking health and wellness seriously, it doesn’t have to take a lot of time, money or effort. It’s just a case of understanding what impacts these things and how to make life easier and less stressful for yourself and your employees.

With that in mind, below are some useful tips and ideas for making health and wellness a priority as a business owner, as well as the health and wellness of your employees (if you have any).

Make exercise a part of the work day

This applies to you and your employees. As part of the workday, try to incorporate exercise, and encourage your team to do the same. There are lots of simple ways that you can do this; it’s just a case of determining what works for you.

Many employers are now giving staff the option of standing desks or desks that can be positioned to be sat or stood at. These encourage your employees to keep moving throughout the day. Another opportunity to help support your employees to stay as active as possible is to have activity breaks a couple of times a day. These are where employees can take a brisk 10-minute walk or spend 10 minutes practising yoga.

When it comes to meetings, instead of holding them around a table, get creative. Some business owners are now holding productive meetings where everyone stands in a circle and throws a ball around as the topics are discussed. It’s about finding what works for you and your team.

Offer workplace classes

To encourage your team to take part in regular exercise, consider offering workplace classes. These could be held at the start and end of the day and could be anything, from yoga to CrossFit. It doesn’t matter what classes you opt to offer, just that you are giving yourself and your employees a chance to work out and stay healthy.

Workout classes are not only a great way to make it easier for yourself and your team to stay in shape. Believe it or not, they can also be an effective method of managing high levels of stress. So the benefits of offering this type of wellness solution are both mental and physical, making it more than worth the investment.

Create a workspace that sets the right mood

Take a look around your workspace and consider whether it is an adequate space for working productively. The truth is to be able to work effectively, the environment that you’re working in needs to be perfect. It needs to be a space that encourages you to work productively and makes it easy to do so.

With that in mind, take some time to consider what it takes to make space feel like a suitable environment for working in. According to studies, three things are seen as being most important when it comes to creating a functional working space. These are adequate lighting, a well-designed space, and airy and open space.

Take the lighting, for instance. For an office space, the advice from a lighting contractor would be to opt for lighting that’s as close to natural light as possible. This is because the overly bright lighting can cause headaches, making it harder for you and your employees to concentrate. You want your office space to feel calm, welcoming, and relaxing. Moving onto creating a light and airy space, the most important thing for this is adequate ventilation. Obviously, the best form of ventilation is natural air. However, if this isn’t an option because of the location of your office space, then having air conditioning installed is a must.

Eat well (encourage employees to do the same)

Research has shown that certain foods make it easier to concentrate while at work. These are known as brain foods – these are all healthy, wholesome foods. Eating unhealthy foods, such as processed ready meals, can harm your health and wellness.

That’s why you must ensure that you follow a healthy, nutritious diet. You’ll find that by doing so, you’ll feel better in yourself and will have more energy to put into your work. With that in mind, it’s also essential to encourage your employees to eat healthily. Read more on how you can start cultivating healthy lifestyle habits with a wide range of informative articles that LifeHacker Guy has on his blog.

A great way to do this is to ensure that any food that’s on offer on-site is healthy. If you don’t have an on-site canteen, then perhaps you could get discount cards for your employees for local eateries? Ideally, these should be places that serve healthy, affordable food. By encouraging your team to eat healthily, you can help to give their health a boost. This should help to increase their energy levels and make them more productive when at work.

Learn how to disconnect from work

As an employer, it’s your job to lead by example. When it comes to learning how to disconnect from your work, you must be aware of how to do so. Many business owners make the mistake of being continually ‘on the clock,’ thinking that it will lead to success. However, all it leads to is you being exhausted and stressed.

It is important that you learn how to disconnect from your work, and take the time to teach your employees to do the same. Doing this is simple. All you need to do is encourage productivity during working hours but then when it comes to the end of the day, make it clear that it’s time to relax and unwind.

Don’t allow employees to work from home in the evenings, as doing so makes it even harder for them to disconnect from their work. The same should apply to you – no working from home in the evenings, unless necessary.

Make socialization a priority

It’s no secret that we are happier and more content with friends around us. That’s why it’s important to make socialization a priority at your workplace. As by doing so, you can help to put your employees in a better mood, which can help to encourage them to be more productive. To show your employees how much fun socializing with their colleagues can be, hold regular team activities and events.

These can consist of a range of things, from team building days to team trips and nights out. The activity itself is not what’s important it’s that you get to know each and every one of your team members. This will allow you to build stronger relationships that will make your time at the office more exciting and enjoyable. The same applies to your employees – the more workplace friends they make; the happier and more enjoyable their time at work will be. Something that, when it comes to mental health, is of the utmost importance.

To make team activities more fun and enjoyable, ask your employees for suggestions. Put all of their suggestions in a hat and pick one a week to try. Sometimes, trying something different can be a lot of fun.

When it comes to running a business, there’s a lot that needs to be taken into account. This means that it’s far too easy for important things to sometimes get missed. However, if there’s one thing that shouldn’t be missed, it’s taking health and wellness seriously. Because by doing so, not only will you become happier and more relaxed, but your team can become more content and more productive. This means that each day, it will be easier to get tasks done.

Of course, there’s also the fact that by taking health and wellness seriously, you can keep employees for longer. As well as the fact that you will become more sought after employer – everyone wants to work for someone who takes wellness seriously. By making a small investment in your business now, you can set it up to have a prosperous future. So taking the time to come up with a health and wellness solution that works well for you and your team is definitely worth doing. It’s just a case of determining which solution is the best option, and how to implement it in daily office life.