As entrepreneurs, passion and vision drive us at first to an advantage but eventually, our mental and physical limitations catch up with us. Creating a healthy workplace not only benefits employees, whether you’re the only employee or you have other people working for you, it can also help the bottom line by increasing productivity.
Encourage small changes to sedentary routines
Buy reusable water bottles - Drinking water is one of the easiest ways to improve nutrition. Even mild dehydration can decrease brain performance, memory and energy levels. Promote more water consumption by buying employees reusable water bottles, which will encourage them to drink more water and reduce their plastic water bottle waste.
Stock the office with healthy snacks - People often struggle to maintain healthy eating habits because it can be expensive and difficult to prepare nutritious meals for the workday. If your office building has vending machines loaded with unhealthy snacks, work with the landlord to replace those temptations.
Bring in a nutritionist - With so many fads diets out there, it can be difficult to know what’s healthy and what’s not. If you have the means to, bringing in a nutritionist or dietitian to meet with employees individually or in a workshop setting. An expert can answer questions, provide easy recipes, and even create individual meal plans.
Host an event - Encourage employee health, support a meaningful cause, and promote corporate activism by hosting an event like a kickball or softball tournament. Many organizations host 5Ks or walkathons to raise money for charities. Focusing on a specific event can help motivate your employees while improving your brand equity in the community.
Hold an office-wide fitness challenge - There’s a reason fitness challenges are so popular; they get the competitive juices flowing. Incentivize employees to be more active by creating an office-wide fitness challenge with prizes.
It’s important to realize that these changes can’t happen overnight. As we all know, habits are hard to break. As an employer, it’s important that you recognize the role you play in your employees’ well-being inside and outside of the office. Do your part to improve the health and wellness of your employees and strive to create a nutritious and healthy environment.
So Nealey, you want to talk about what just happened over there?
I'm okay.
Yeah. So let's talk about some actual things you can implement throughout your
day to make the workplace more healthy. Right?
Let's do it.
So creating a healthy workplace isn't just good for you and your employees.
It also could be good for your bottom line. Right. Which is always great.
Yeah. It helps increase productivity.
So by doing little things such as making small changes,
like standing instead of sitting down. Right.
I know at GoDaddy we have those little treadmill desks so we can work and walk
at the same time and just really get that juices flowing. Yeah. Fit fam.
Yeah. Fit fam. That GD Fit life.
But little things like that really promote not sitting all day.
Cause we all know sitting is just bad for our backs.
Apparently stretching is bad for my back, but
But other than that, stretching is typically good for you.
Right. Do something active or just get your, your people moving.
Just one little step at a time.
Another small change you can make is to turn those, you know,
email and online conversations into a one-on-one personal interaction. Yeah.
And as Abe Lincoln once told me, if you're on Slack, you're slacking.
Don't want to be slacking. And speaking of slacking, you know, get up,
move around, try taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
Yeah. That's why I kind of like wearing my Fitbit everywhere.
Cause it tracks how many stairs I hit or how many steps I hit to make sure that
I'm constantly moving. Uh,
and I probably don't take the stairs as much as I should.
For me, whenever I need a break,
like I'll just get out and take a walk around outside the building.
It's a great way to clear your head, get some of that nature. Right.
So the next way you can help you and your employees is to just create a
nutritious environment there at work.
What does that look like?
For me, it's having a water bottle always by your desk, right?
Those recyclable water bottles, just having water there,
having healthy snacks, right? If, if there's unhealthy food there,
I'm going to eat it.
Yeah. And then we end up like not feeling good the rest of the day,
going to what I'd call a food coma.
You really just don't want to do anything. It happens.
Doesn't do that if I'm eating some healthy snacks and apples, bananas,
maybe maybe a smoothie. Yeah.
And if you're able to bring in a nutritionist, I mean,
we're not all experts, but they are.
So they can at least teach your employees, teach you, you know,
what exactly to do your health and wellness journey.
It doesn't have to stop whenever you clock out of the office.
You could plan a fun 5k for your employees, a kickball game.
Those are great ways to stay active and also team building, right?
Yeah. And as Abe Lincoln once told me, kickball is the way to your soul.
You have a lot of Abe Lincoln quotes.
But even if you implement all these things and you, you know,
have healthy snacks there, you know,
it's going to come down to whether or not the employees have that, you know,
incentive and want to be active and healthy.
Yeah.
And it really comes down to asking them which healthy snacks they like or what
they prefer. The more that they're involved,
the better they are going to be to really sticking with that plan.
So what are some ways that you like to stay active and healthy in the workplace?
Let us know in the comments below.
While you're there, go ahead.
As always, smash that like button, subscribe to our channel and ring the bell.
So you get these episodes first.
This is The Journey. We'll see you next time.
