With the recent COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the globe, the importance of a healthy and clean workplace has become the highest priority. Providing that security and safety, and comfort of mind, for your staff and your visitors has never been more critical. When we consider that more than 60% of Singaporean adults spend over half their waking hours at work, ensuring the good health of your staff can reduce absentee rates and increase staff engagement leading to greater overall productivity and staff retention.
There are many ways that you can ensure that your workplace itself is provided with the facilities services, floor solutions, and sanitary solutions for the day to day activity, which organisations such as Alsco are ideally positioned to help you with. Beyond that, a study conducted by the Singapore’s Health Promotion Board found that implementing comprehensive and structured health programs actually led to increased savings due to the higher productivity levels and reduced staff turnovers that it creates.
Health promotion is the process of enabling individuals to increase control over and improve their health. Three ways this can be achieved is through:
- Health Education: educating the individual on nutrition, hygiene and other health topics
- Health Prevention: regular health checks and immunisations
- Health Protection: providing a healthy environment (e.g. smoke free)
So as an employer, what can you do to promote a healthier workplace?
As seen in recent months, education around the importance of good personal and hand hygiene should be prioritised. Having good hygiene – for instance, regular supplies of hand sanitiser and anti-bacterial wipes available for staff – is one of the best ways employees can protect themselves and other colleagues from getting illnesses, and has been highlighted as key to the fight against the spread of diseases such as COVID-19. Simple education surrounding hand hygiene, refraining from hand shakes, using tissues when you sneeze, and binning litter, used masks or tissues immediately after use can make a difference.
According to Singapore Health Promotion Board, other ways to promote a healthier workplace include:
- Physical Activities
- Encourage walking meetings, subsidising gym memberships and provide standing desks
- Health Screenings
- Provide regular health checkups for employees, provide wearable technology to monitor health indicators
- Stress Management
- Provide free or subsidised stress management or counselling sessions
- Mental health first aid and education
- Provide rest areas and sleep pods
- Work Life Balance
- Provide flexible working hours
- Workplace Infrastructure
- Provide stairs, showers and bike racks to promote physical activity
- On site gyms or fitness programs
- Chronic Disease Management
- Insulin testing on site
- Subsidised GP or specialist checkups
- Nutrition
- Provide healthier cafeteria options
- Eliminate or reduce foods with high fat, sugar and salt content
- Provision of free fruit or other healthier options
Investing in the short and long term health of your employees can provide a great return on investment for your organisation and your employees.
At Alsco, we value the health of your employees. We provide staff education on first aid, first aid kits, uniforms to protect the health of your employees and washroom services to increase hygiene around the office. Get in touch with us today to improve the health and wellbeing of your staff.
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