It’s challenging to stay healthy and productive in a place that makes you sit all day and do repetitive tasks. But no matter how challenging it is, it’s definitely not impossible! Here are some tips that may help you along the way.
1. Walking Meetings
While formal matters definitely require a sit down meeting, why not change things up when it comes to more informal ones? You know those meetings where it’s basically information dissemination that involves only two or three persons but still needs face time because it’s still delicate to just email them? Yes those meetings can be done while walking to get coffee. This way, employees are more likely to pay attention instead of fiddling through their phones until the meeting is done.
2. Standing Workstations
We’re not saying your office should boycott chairs altogether, just that it would be better to design your workstations in a way that will allow you to comfortably work while standing from time to time. Sitting all day can’t just kill you slowly but it can also affect the quality of your work because of the prolonged slump.
3. Plants In The Office
Plants are calming to look at, give off oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide, plus they can make any surrounding look more alive. So decorating your cubicle with plants can help make you feel better even with a truckload of work. When a worker is less stressed, his work improves and his health doesn’t decline.
4. Start A Healthy Breakfast Club
Since more and more individuals often eat breakfast at work to avoid running late, be more conscious of what you stuff on your mouth. Don’t mindlessly buy fast food for your breakfast every day. Instead, encourage your co-workers to pack breakfast so you can all eat together. Fun right! Take turns in bringing breakfast for everybody, volunteer to go first so that you’d be more motivated to bring healthier food like hard-boiled eggs, sweet potato hash and fresh fruits. The others then will feel compelled to make the same choices with the food they’ll pack.
5. Sponsored Gym Membership
Gym memberships can be pricey and not everyone can afford it. So why not suggest that the higher-ups or your boss include free gym membership among the other benefits of employees. If they ask how this benefits them in return, you can simply say that healthy and fit workers become more productive employees who are less liable to use sick days.
6. Integrated Exercise Equipment In The Office
Most people only get to sweat it out in the gym after work nowadays. The problem with this is that, employees are often too tired to work out after office hours or they have other commitments to attend to. This results to a lot of no-gym-for-today day. But if your office has pullup bar leading into the break room, a climbing rope hanging from the rafters, gymnastics rings attached to the overhead beam near the bathrooms then it’d be easier to squeeze in some workout every day. Even if it’s just for 10 minutes at a time, it’s better than nothing all day.
7. Fitness Challenges
Employees always find a way to entertain themselves to stay sane from their monotonous office lives. Instead of gossiping or beating each other on online games, why not initiate fitness challenges? Since it’s a competition, people will be motivated and challenged to participate. This also breeds progress because people are trying to be better than their competition so they’re more likely to push themselves. What a sneaky way to stay active right!
8. Office Naps
People often feel sleepy after a big meal like lunch, aside from that we all know that workers are less productive in the afternoon because it’s around this time that fatigue hits people, hence the afternoon slump. Instead of forcing yourself to stay awake by mindlessly scrolling through social media to beat your urge to sleep, try to cut your lunch a bit short and take a nap. Better yet, consider suggesting the idea of allowing employees to take short power naps after lunch to your superior in your next meeting. This may not fly at first but if you explain that tired employees are less effective employees who produce sub-par work, then they may start seeing the point.
9. Lead By Quiet Example
If you want to encourage more people to lead healthier lives, you don’t have to teach them how, just lead by example. If you show your co-workers how energetic you are after a quick power nap that you don’t need coffee to get through the day, or how you don’t seem stressed at all despite the pile of paper works on your desk because you do jumping jacks before tackling the work, or how you take less sick leaves because you bring your own healthy meal instead of ordering fast food, they’ll all soon follow your ways.
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