Gone are the days of hard gruelling work and clock watching during a 9 - 5:30 job. Businesses across the world are introducing wellness programmes in various capacities from more relaxed rules around remote working from home, helping parents with flexibility around family life, to introducing a visitor check in system and office yoga, anything to encourage increased productivity in employees. And it's more important than ever to look after your employees in the age of the hybrid workplace.
What are office wellness hacks?
As more research and evidence is released surrounding the links between mental health and happiness and productivity in the workplace, it’s important to ensure you're actively cultivating a space and culture where employees are motivated to come to work get the job done. Unilever are a great example, recently completing an 18 month trial of the 4 day work week they found that absenteeism dropped by 34% while feelings of vigour and strength at work increased by 15%, results indicating that businesses which embrace the concept of flexibility and trust in getting the job done breeds a culture of happy employees.
9 Office wellness hacks to introduce to your workplace
- 1. Encourage fresh air and natural light
- 2. Create biophilic space by installing indoor plants
- 3. Stock up the fruit bowl & offer herbal tea options
- 4. Go minimal with design
- 5. Create an art buying committee
- 6. Encourage employees to have an outdoors hour
- 7. Introduce a stand up desk
- 8. Book the team in for office yoga
- 9. Keep employees health & safety top of mind
Here at SwipedOn, we strive to put the health and wellbeing of our staff first, with green workplace initiatives, fun social events and office wellness hacks outlined in this article. We even hold an annual wellness week.
We’ve learned a few things along the way which have proved important for keeping our staff motivated, with the intention of creating a positive and exciting office culture that all our staff want to be a part of; from perfecting the coffee grind so our employees can drink great coffee for free to playing table tennis to promote a playful and fun environment.
In this post, we’ve outlined how to implement 9 office wellness hacks in the workplace, which are curated specifically to help you think about other ways to keep your staff happy and motivated, and improve productivity (and hopefully your bottom line along with it!)
In this video, Lou from SwipedOn takes you through inexpensive office wellness hacks you can easily introduce into your workplace to keep staff motivated and healthy.
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1. Encourage fresh air and natural light
Having air con and heating systems running all day long, and cooping up employees in small cubicles without access to natural light, can create a dark and stale environment. In a Human Spaces Report, it was found that people who are exposed to natural light have a 15% higher level of wellbeing than those who work in environments devoid of nature.
It can feel unavoidable in certain weather conditions and seasons but it's good to be conscious that fresh air can help boost mood and productivity and ensure at times when fresh air and sunlight may be less accessible (like winter for example) that solutions are put in place to help employees achieve those.
Ensure there is a source of fresh air and natural light for your employees; whether you have windows which can be opened or a balcony / rooftop space where your staff and head to get some fresh air and work in the shade with their laptop if they want to. Want to embrace the newest trends? Build a deckony.
2. Create biophilic space by installing indoor plants
Just as natural light is important, biophilia (meaning a love of life or living things) is fast becoming a buzzword in the world of workplace feng shui. It's well known that nature can alleviate feelings of stress, improve mental stamina, and enable better focus and productivity. And global research findings in the same Human Spaces Report advised that 'natural elements positively linked to creativity at work'.
Whether it’s ensuring there are plenty of plants in the workspace, a (well-behaved!) dog, aquarium or even just beautiful photographs of stunning natural scenery; all of the aforementioned have the ability to lift our spirits and help us feel relaxed and creative which can only boost productivity.
3. Stock up the fruit bowl & offer herbal tea options
Providing a fruit bowl and herbal tea options helps promote healthy wellbeing among staff, with the benefit of your staff feeling cared for. While Friday beers and chocolate or doughnuts can be a welcome treat for staff (we love both of those too!), providing a healthy option on a daily basis shows that you really care about their wellbeing. Herbal teas can pack a punch of health benefits, so let your staff get creative with the selection and hand the reigns over to them to choose which ones they'd like to see in the kitchen selection.
4. Go minimal with design
Human Spaces Report also found that minimalism was most often cited (38%) as the style of building design that would inspire at work. If we then start to think about how we can streamline processes in the office, along with the design, a simple visitor management system could be the perfect fit. And better yet, ensure you have a VMS that offer an option for contactless sign in, to help both employees and visitors feel at ease.
Not only can you have an easy-to-use employee in/out board but the visitor management system allows visitors to sign in easily, sending an email and SMS notification (optional) to the member of staff being visited. By taking the first step towards a more automated workspace with a visitor management system, it becomes easy to introduce more advanced tech later on.
5. Create an art buying committee
A bright and colourful workspace is proven to have positive implications on productivity and mood. So why not launch an art buying committee for your workspace so everyone can have some input into how you dress up your office? Having small teams who choose the art will not only help with workplace relationships but will also help build relationships with the local artist community. And it doesn't have to be a quick fix, it could be a year or two long project which always helps make the budget go a bit further.
6. Encourage employees to have an outdoors hour
How about designating one hour a week for your staff to spend outdoors? This is next level biophilia in the workplace! Allowing your employees the freedom to get offsite and spend time with nature. Encourage them to spend one hour on work time getting out and doing something outside - even better, doing the activity with colleagues and having the opportunity to talk about work-related ideas or just bonding as a team!
So if the surf is good, encourage them to spend a spontaneous hour outside, if they want to get out for an ocean swim, go rock climbing or just for a countryside walk or bike ride give them the option to spend their one hour of outdoors time wisely to fill the body with endorphins and the lungs with fresh or salty air!
7. Introduce a stand up desk
A much debated topic in many workplaces (because for some, it just doesn't align with the budget to start giving everyone one), the stand up desk is a workplace wonder. For anyone with back problems who struggles to sit for long periods of time, or equally for the person in tip top health without those back problems who just can't sit still all day long, it’s a welcome relief.
Not only that, but it's proven to help reduce tiredness and boost productivity. It's not even necessary to get everyone one - you could have a designated standing desk area with perhaps two desks with a hot desk approach to those stations.
8. Book the team in for office yoga
Before your mind wanders there, we’re not suggesting everyone play yoga mat tetris in between the office furniture. Find a designated space, whether that’s a meeting room, a showroom, or an unfurnished area of an open plan office - it’s amazing what spaces you can turn into a yoga studio when you clear a few desks and lay down those yoga mats!
Most yoga teachers these days are very adaptable and it's common to see them rocking up at corporate workspaces carrying their yoga mats and good vibes aplenty. If you don't have wellness budget, you could ask everyone to chip in and make office yoga happen that way either before work, during a lunch hour or after work.
9. Keep employees health & safety top of mind
This one is possibly the most obvious but can be overlooked when searching for ways to keep employees engaged and well. Health and safety continues to be top of mind for employees since the pandemic and is at the heart of a new office wellness trend called wellworking.
Wellworking embraces the idea of taking the health and safety concerns of your staff seriously, listening to them and implementing technologies and initiatives that nurture peace of mind at work, as well as taking measures to keep your staff safe and healthy. This includes facilitating the ability to split work in different locations and being accepting - and adaptable - to different points of view.
Recognizing health and safety as part of the workplace experience is crucial for employee satisfaction. Implementing a visitor and employee sign in system is a great way to show your staff that you take their concerns seriously.
SwipedOn continues to help numerous companies, businesses, industries and organisations throughout the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the rest of the world to better improve their front desk operations. We have helped streamline the visitor sign-in software to ensure it remains compliant to GDPR rules. Sign-up for the free 14-day trial to experience the numerous benefits it can bring to your organisation.
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