Kids have gone back to school, fall is settling in and it’s time to encourage employees through the last quarter of the year. Keeping employee morale and employee productivity up during this part of the year is important, and the easiest way to do that is to keep them healthy and support health and wellness. Here are our top 4 picks for keeping employee productivity at an annual high this fall:
Keep It Clean: Germs kill productivity. Keeping the office clean and tidy is critical to keeping your workforce healthy. Even if it means paying the office cleaning company a bit more through the winter months, it will be worth it to keep the office humming and not full of viruses throughout the colder months.
Provide Sick Days: This one can depend on where you’re located. Some states have begun to mandate a certain number of sick days; others still have not. A Huffington Post study revealed that 1 in 4 American workers show up sick for work at one point or another. That’s bad not only for that employee’s productivity, but also for their colleagues. Patient Zero is most likely going to share their germs. Encouraging employees to use employer-provided sick days instead of showing up to work sick is better for everyone.
Encourage Immunizations: The CDC estimates that flu shots mitigated 6.6 million cases of the flu between 2012 and 2013. Encourage employees to get flu shots. Bring in a flu clinic for a day or two, provide gift cards specifically for flu shots, do whatever is feasible for your company to make sure your employees are immunized. The flu knocks people out for a week or more, so keep up employee productivity by keeping the flu out.
Be Flexible: We talk a lot about work/life balance and it’s because it is SO important. Be flexible with an employee feeling a little under the weather by letting them work from home or take a last minute sick day. It supports a lot of what we talked about in number 2, keeping sick folks, or almost sick folks, out of range of the rest of your productive, working staff. Flexibility can lead to greater health and wellness all year long.
