4 Health and Wellness Tips for Enhancing Employees' Well-Being

A successful business is one with engaged employees. In fact, we've recently reported statistics finding that companies that actively make an effort to engage employees can reduce turnover by over 18%. Despite that, 85% of employees aren't engaged at work. One of the biggest reasons why? A lack of well-being in the office. Due to factors like stress, worsened health and wellness, and toxic workplace cultures, many employees feel they don't receive the support they need to stay at their current jobs.

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Fortunately, this is something your own business can avoid. With the right strategies, you can enhance your employees' well-being in the workplace and better engage them in all the right ways. Here are some health and wellness tips you can try to achieve just that.

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Promote better eating

Ensuring employees get the proper nourishment, even just at the office, will guarantee that they can always function at their best. That means sharpened physical and cognitive skills for more energy, less absenteeism—and, ultimately, improved productivity. Case studies on workplaces in Canada and other countries around the globe even find that nutrition-focused workplace interventions can significantly influence how healthily employees eat at home, which can help them feel like you genuinely care for their well-being and better engage them at work. Some things you can try to promote better eating include providing healthy meal and snack options in the office and curating more nutritious menus when booking catering services for work events.

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Motivate more movement

This tip is one you should keep in mind if your employees work desk jobs. Prolonged periods spent sitting down can negatively impact their health by elevating blood pressure and sugar levels while increasing their likelihood of developing obesity and even cancer. That said, give your employees more opportunities to move around. Think of walking meetings and staff walking contests; charity runs as team-building activities and gym memberships as employee incentives. 

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You can also integrate that motivation for movement into your employees' daily routines. In particular, consider outfitting their workspaces with ergonomic furniture. Sit-stand workstations like the VIVO and VariDesk Pro Plus 36 can help employees vary their work positions and break up those long sedentary periods during office hours, reducing the risk of them developing aches and pains that can ultimately take away from their well-being. In fact, standing desks have helped big companies like CBRE create modern workspaces that significantly increase employee satisfaction.

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Prioritize vision care

Though digital transformation has been especially beneficial for businesses, companies need to watch out for worsened employee eye health. An increasing reliance on devices to get jobs done means more screen time. That can cause pain and discomfort through computer vision syndrome, negatively impacting their productivity and well-being. 

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Fortunately, you can avoid that by prioritizing employee vision care. Consider starting by working with optometry clinics to provide eye exams free of cost to your employees. That can help them easily determine if they need to buy corrective aids or update their existing prescriptions. You can help here, too. By allocating funds to add vision care to your benefits package, your employees can purchase eyeglasses from reliable brands at a cheaper price. One major retailer you can consider is Ray-Ban. It accepts most insurance plans upon checkout, meaning employees can more easily avail of eyewear from its optical line. Aside from updated prescriptions, these can come with advanced lens technologies like blue-violet light filtering to reduce eye strain from excess screen time. Ultimately, that means you can give your employees a more accessible way to safeguard their eye health at work and improve their overall well-being.

Support mental health

Another thing you need to keep in mind is that the modern business landscape is more fast-paced than ever. That means employees are more likely to get stressed and burn out—making it especially vital for you to engage them in ways that support their mental health. One way you can start is by promoting better work-life balance. Offer flexible work arrangements, establish boundaries like discouraging work communications outside office hours, and support employees taking time off for mental health reasons. 

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For longer-lasting results, consider implementing more serious workplace initiatives similar to Health Canada's Employee Assistance Program, which provides federal employees and their families 24/7 access to mental health support. Your efforts in this direction can involve connecting your own team to mental health professionals for counselling and offering rebates for any sessions they attend. As with vision care, you can also add mental health coverage to your benefits packages. With nearly 43% of Canadian employees unable to afford mental healthcare, your efforts can help better enhance their well-being for improved engagement.

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