Here’s a pin-up list of things your employees can do at work to improve their health and help take a bite out of insurance cost increases:
- Conduct meetings on the go. Suggest that employees, when practical, conduct meetings or brainstorming sessions while walking the parking lot (weather permitting) or around your building.
- Start a lunchtime walking group. This is always a popular option and usually attracts a crowd ready to lace up their walking shoes. Bonus: Participants usually hold each other accountable for regular exercise and encourage co-workers to stick with it.
- Keep small fitness gear around. Some things that’ll fit into a desk drawer: resistance bands and hand weights. Employees could do curls with their free hand while on the phone.
- Trade in the office chair for a fitness ball. It might look a little weird, but a firmly inflated ball works great as a desk chair. Benefits: It’ll tone core muscles and improve balance — which will come in handy when winter storms bring ice and snow, two leading causes of slips, falls, sprains and strains.
- Trade in coffee breaks for walking breaks. Rather than hanging out in the lounge sipping coffee, encourage workers to try a brisk walk to wake them up. It get’s the blood flowing (without caffeine) and reenergizes the body and mind.
- Stand whenever you can. Standing burns more calories than sitting. Some good times to stand: when reading anything that’s not on a computer screen, while on the phone and while eating lunch.
What are some ways you encourage workers to improve their health? Let us know in the Comments Box below.
