The Business of Keeping Employees Healthy

The devastating Ebola virus has been in the news for several months now.

As the CDC continues their efforts to control the spread of this deadly outbreak and as the following article shows, you may wonder, does your business have to worry about Ebola?

Your employees and your business may indeed face risks unless you make it your business to keep employees healthy.
Here are some proactive steps you can take….

Encourage Healthy Snacking

Ebola is essentially an immune system attacker.

One of the ways your employees can guard against infection is to keep their immune system as strong as possible.

Encourage healthy snacking in your business by offering incentives to employees who want to gain and maintain health. Replace office kitchen junk food with nutritious alternatives like the following:

• Nuts and seeds instead of potato chips
• Fresh fruit instead of donuts
• Mineral water instead of soda pop
• Herbal tea instead of caffeine-laden coffee

If you supply these snack and beverage items for free, your employees are more likely to choose them over junk food.

Sponsor Physical and Mental Fitness Classes

Many businesses pay for all or part of gym memberships.

But go a step further and sponsor at least a portion of independent fitness classes such as yoga, kickboxing or meditation.

All these help to put your employees in the mindset of fitness and health.

Make it Easy to Stay Home Sick

Diligent employees will often drag themselves into work with severe colds and fever because they feel that taking a sick day is frowned upon.

But what ends up happening is they infect coworkers with their illness, and cause an outbreak of sickness in the office environment. If the illness is Ebola, the results could be ruinous.

Make it clear to your employees that you do not want to see them in the office if they are sick.

If you put provisions in place that will make it easy for them to stay home sick, they’ll be much more likely to heed your rule.

Invest in team-sharing, collaborative application software so that workers who feel only slightly ill can work from home.

Software like this will allow them to stay abreast of project developments and log in their own work, keeping the business running without jeopardizing the health of the office.

Have a Health Workshop

You can educate all your employees about the importance of healthy practices by inviting a health professional in to lead a health workshop.

Ask them to specifically address the threat of the Ebola virus. In this way, you can ensure that all your employees are privy to the same information.

The workshop will also give your employees an opportunity to ask questions that concern them regarding the Ebola virus and about health in general.

Considering the severe consequences of the Ebola virus, you cannot afford to take chances with the health of your employees.

Implement these ideas today to make sure you and your employees have the best odds for health.

About the Author: Kate Supino writes about best business practices for employers and employees alike.