Week of Occupational Health

From November 25, 2019 to Thursday, November 28, 2019, is once again Week of Health. A week dedicated to our overall health: exercise, nutrition, mental well-being and so much more.

While every employer should recognize that it pays off to commit to general health in the workplace, Health Week allows you to go a step further. A week where we as employers can motivate and encourage our employees even more toward a healthier version of themselves. After all, a healthy employee is a more engaged employee who is less absent and performs better both mentally and physically.

We'll help you along the way to make this week a success! Below you will find plenty of tips and initiatives you can undertake. Choose the ones you see as feasible.

Do you have any questions? Don't hesitate to contact us!

#1 Ban the unhealthy

Motivate employees to make healthy choices and avoid unhealthy drinks, cookies,... as much as possible, especially during that one healthy week. You can contribute to this as an employer by making the unhealthy unavailable or harder to access and promoting the healthy.

Tips:

• Make the barrier to choosing unhealthy food & drinks higher. You can do this by "hiding" them in a cupboard or drawer so they don't catch the eye. As a bonus, you can create awareness on the outside of the drawer and refer to the healthy alternatives.
• Ban unhealthy foods & drinks completely for one week.
• Put the healthy alternatives in place of the unhealthy ones and promote their consumption!

#2 Provide employees with healthy snacks

Healthy snacking has numerous benefits: it keeps the metabolism going, providing the body with adequate energy throughout the day. As a result, mental dips and hunger pangs are a thing of the past.

Order a box full of healthy snacks

#3 Make employees aware of healthy habits

It's important to build support around the initiatives you want to introduce by educating employees. Explain the importance of a healthy lifestyle and tell them that you want to support them in it. Choose accurate, positive and constructive communication when you want to engage employees. That is, on a regular, two-way basis. So be sure to be open to feedback as well! Of course, ideally you want to motivate everyone, but maintain the free choice of employees to participate or not.

Tips to make employees more aware of healthy habits:

• Organize info sessions (during the afternoon)

• Healthy diet & lifestyle
• Sleep & mind
• Stress & burn-out
• Movement
• Ergonomics
• Breathing
• Stop smoking
• Order a box of healthy snacks and receive free posters, info sheets, fun promotions (e.g. around mutual feedback) with the snack boxes

#4 Sports initiatives for everyone

It sounds contradictory, but exercise provides the body with more energy. Moreover, exercise helps to clear the head and reduce stress. As a company, if you invest in more exercise among employees, you invest directly in higher productivity, stress resistance and job satisfaction. By the way, how about exercise in group? A positive impact on the work atmosphere and the image of your company guaranteed!

Don't just think about intensive sports when we talk about exercise: low-threshold activities such as walking (find out all about lunch walks), yoga, tai-chi, or stretching can be great before lunch or throughout the day.

Do an internal poll of employees asking "who would like to organize a session to highlight their sport." You're sure to find plenty of enthusiasts before you call on outside consultants.