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Five tips to make your workforce healthier in 2016

Funway Holidays has spent the past year running initiatives to make its office healthier and the results are starting to show. Karl Tomusk shares five of their tips

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Healthy-office.jpg
Healthy-office.jpg


The start of a new year brings a horde of resolutions with it, and there is no reason your working life should be any different. Jump into 2016 by making your office just a bit healthier. Nick Talbot, head of marketing at Funway, talks to us about how his company has spent the past year pushing its wellness initiative, bringing its sickness rate in 2015 down by 13% compared to 2014, and the five ways you can make your job more active.

 

Personalise

The first rule of making your office healthy this year, Talbot says, is talking to your employees about what they want. “Really listen to them because wellness is individual to each person. Ask them ‘What does wellness mean to you?’” At Funway, the company started giving out free fresh fruit on Fridays after one employee was worried about the nutrition in their food. Another was suffering from anxiety, so they brought in free monthly massages for everyone. Their whole wellness plan has been based on suggestions from people in the office, which has made it easier to get people involved.

 

Get competitive

There is nothing quite like a bit of healthy competition to build up motivation. Every Funway employee has a pedometer to log how many steps the person has taken, and the company pits everyone against each other in challenges to see who can walk the most. “It’s about creating that competitive spirit within the team. People want to beat each other when it comes to who’s done the most steps,” Talbot says. He also runs tennis clinics, while their financial controller uses his background in running to take people out on jogs around their office in Bromley.

 

Change of scenery

Not only can sitting in an office day after day get dull, it can take a physical toll on you. According to the World Health Organization, the average office worker spends 50-70% of their day sitting down, which doubles their risk of developing diabetes. That’s why Talbot organises one to two mile Wellness Walks around Bromley with his team and encourages everyone to go out for lunch instead of staying indoors. It comes as no surprise, especially with competitions at stake, that between 40-45 of the 55 employees in the office take part in their weekly walks.

 

Make a stand

Switch up your traditional seating plans with standing desks. Funway recently replaced some of its desks with standing ones, which, Talbot says, have been a hit with the whole office. Standing two to three hours a day helps a person burn 30,000 more calories per year, but, more than that, Talbot says the new desks have also had an immediate effect on staff morale. Walking and standing more have made his team less tired and lethargic. Some of his colleagues who suffer from migraines have also reported fewer incidents since they brought in the furniture. All of this has helped the office be more productive, take 13% fewer sick days and stay happier.

 

Rewards

Sometimes, people need an extra boost to hit those walking targets, which is why Funway has introduced rewards for its competition winners. These rewards are usually donations to a charity of the winner’s choice because, Talbot says, the business needs to commit to its ideals. “Wellness has been one of our core values for the business and we try to tie it in with charity. It has to link with the principles we have.”

 

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