How to encourage employees to live healthier

Encouraging employees to live healthier can be a tricky task.While it is important for employees to be healthy, devoting too much time from the work day to employee health can be bad for productivity.Then again, requiring employees to do things outside of work time can seem like an infringement on their privacy.How can a business owner or manager find a healthy balance?Here are a few tips for encouraging employees to live healthier.

Non-Smoking Policy

Many working professionals are plagued by a smoking habit.This habit has created problems for many companies that have tried to encourage employees to live healthy.Some companies have even fired any employee that will not quit smoking (a step that is legal in twenty-one of the fifty United States).

However, there are steps that can be taken that are not so drastic.One is to make it against company policy to smoke during work hours.Another is to provide a quit smoking program.Many programs are available over the internet, and employees can take advantage of them during a few minutes each day.Some companies provide nicotine gum or patches for free to employees that want to quit.Making smokers pay higher prices for health insurance is another way to encourage them to live healthier.

Healthy Lifestyles Training

Many employees want to live a healthier lifestyle but are unsure how to improve their health.Companies may consider offering healthy lifestyles trainings.These trainings can be given during the lunch hour.Employers can provide a healthy lunch, and employees can learn about how to eat healthier, exercise safely, diet, and deal with stress.These trainings could be made available as often as the employer or manager wished to provide them.Many private gyms and universities have people who would be willing to come and provide the trainings.Some may not even charge very much.

Healthy Incentives

Many times providing trainings or information on being healthier is not quite enough to light the fire under someone who is not in the habit of living a healthy lifestyle.Sometimes an incentive is necessary.Some companies have worked out a deal where employees may use three hours of work time per week to exercise or do some sort of wellness activity.The employee would present a plan for improving their health to their manager who would sign off on the plan.Then, each week the employee would log the hours they used for their wellness activity and the nature of the activity.At the end of each quarter, the employees that met a certain amount of hours would receive some sort of prize.Some companies give lucrative prizes and other just give cash.

Give Hints

Sometimes companies are not in a position to provide trainings or offer incentive for healthy living.These companies can still do many things to encourage employees to live healthier.Managers could designate someone to send a weekly email with tips on eating healthy, stretching during the day, relieving stress, exercising, and any other tips that would improve employee wellness.Companies could also replace all of the junk food in the break room with healthy snacks.Fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthy snacks would be eaten just as much, if not more than unhealthy snacks.

No matter what position a company may be in, encouraging employee health is something they can do.Creating a smoke-free environment, providing healthy lifestyles training, offering incentives, or giving subtle hints to employees can all help encourage employees to live healthier.