Be A Business Owner That Takes Health & Wellness Seriously
Posted on October 28, 2016 .
officeimageBeing 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) is in need of some help.
‘Wellness’ has become the buzzword of the business industry during 2016. With businesses of all shapes and sizes offering wellness programs and solutions. Many employers have decided to offer wellness programs to 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.
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. These relate to your own health and wellness 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 work day, 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 option to help encourage 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 practicing yoga.
When it comes to meetings, instead of holding them around a table, get creative. Some business owners are now holding active 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 the chance to workout 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 effective 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 a space feel like a good environment for working in. According to studies, there are three things that are seen as being most important when it comes creating a good working space. These are adequate lighting, a well-designed space, and an 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 lighting that’s overly bright 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 there are certain foods that 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 have a negative impact on your health and wellness.
That’s why it’s important that you ensure that you follow a healthy, n