Healthy Workers = High Performance
Apparently, 43% of adults spend less than ten minutes a day walking. That’s nearly half of the UK who have a 60% higher risk of premature death compared with those who exercise regularly. The recommended number of steps we should walk per day is 10,000. Most adults walk somewhere between 3000 and 4000.
It is time for line managers of remote workers to encourage them to build expertise into their day. After all, it pays to foster a healthier, energised workforce because that results in less sickness, higher productivity and ultimately better customer service.
Here are a few tips:
- Host a 20-minute daily morning call where employees are encouraged to ‘walk and talk’ team meeting. Whatever the weather – it may just be a walk around their garden or a chance to walk the dog while catching up on business. This can be a practical and sociable solution to a lack of exercise in the office.
- Build gym membership into your employee benefits package. It will cost less if employees can visit a gym during the day.
- Buy home working staff a Fit Bit and encourage fitness challenges between team members.
- Hook up with a Fitness Guru who can do an initial face to face meeting and then provide online fitness packages for all types of fitness levels. This can also work for those with reduced mobility provided the fitness regime is bespoke to their needs. For example, even with my mobility issue, I manage to dance along with Colleen Nolan 3 times a week to try to maintain a certain level of fitness.
- In 2 weeks, you’ll feel the difference in your team
- In 3 weeks, you’ll see the difference in your team
- In 4 weeks, you’ll hear the difference in your team
The effort that you put into encouraging your staff to stay healthy will also have a knock-on effect on your staff engagement scores.
Healthy and happy homeworkers produce a better result. We are on a mission to promote smart working, if you would like to find out more about how this would work for your organisation then contact Ruth on rg@thechangedirectors.co.uk or call 07976 509 551.
