The business case for investing in a healthier workplace is strong. Healthier Workplace WA’s Hayley O’Connell says healthy employees are almost three times more productive than unhealthy employees.
“We know that businesses that don’t promote health and well-being are four times more likely to lose talent within 12 months than those that do,” she says.
Healthier Workplace WA offers free services to all WA workplaces to help them build workplace health and well-being programs.
She said it’s important to make time to ask employees questions to understand what they need. “We know there’s no one size fits all approach to workplace health,” she says.
“The things we look at are unhealthy eating and drinking, physical inactivity, alcohol and smoking.
“We know that these behaviours can lead to chronic disease, which can result in people taking a lot more time off work. ”
She says the good news is there are many easy wins for workplaces looking to support employees to become healthier.
Workplaces can provide healthy transport options and encourage staff to either cycle or walk to work.
People can also get moving by holding standing or walking meetings instead of sitting around a table.
“Even moving bins from individual desks can encourage staff to get up and walk a little”, she says.
Healthier Workplace WA offers free online and face-to-face training, as well as resources to help plan and run healthy workplace strategies.
