4 Ways to Keep Your Team – and Your Productivity – Healthy This Winter

It’s still dark when we leave the house, the commute to work has become cold as well as miserable, and there’s a scratching at the back of your throat: yes, winter is definitely upon us. For your team, it often comes a plethora of sniffles, sneezes and days spent curled up in bed.

But if that’s the case, it won’t just your employees who’ll be feeling unwell this winter – your business’ productivity could also see a sharp drop with every individual who falls victim to the flu.

With that in mind (and because we know best on this sort of thing), we’ve got some advice for keeping your team nice and healthy this winter, so that your business can continue to do brilliant things no matter what germs are going around!

  1. Provide Healthy Snacks

We all like to indulge in some sweet treats at the office this time of year – a mince pie here, some chocolate there – but we must also be mindful of whether or not these treats are helping our bodies to stay healthy. This winter, be a little unpopular for your team’s sake, and provide healthy snacks full of vitamins. Yes, there’ll be a few groans to begin with, but your employees will soon thank you when they’re not sniffling! 

  1. Keep a Clean Office

Germs thrive in unclean places, and that includes the workplace. One of the most basic lines of defence against illness should be keeping a clean office. Note that ‘clean’ is not the same as ‘tidy’ – although you may have files stored neatly and no clutter on the desk, that doesn’t mean that germs and dust aren’t hiding both in plain sight and away in nooks and crannies. The solution? Keep a clean workplace with thorough, regular cleaning using high quality products – or even better, get a high quality contract cleaning company to lend a hand!

  1. Encourage Proper Hygiene

It’s not just the desks you need to ask your team to keep clean, either. Colds and flu are often spread through the germs on our hands and from coughing. Making sure that they’re practising good hygiene will do wonders for the health of your team: encourage them to clean their hands and sneeze/cough into tissues to save any illnesses from being passed on. These are both easily done by providing anti-bacterial hand gel and tissues for communal use.

  1. Tell Them to Get Moving

Exercise is another important way to keep healthy in the winter: it lowers stress, releases endorphins, and keeps the immune system in tip top condition. You don’t even need to do anything extreme to get your team moving – just encourage them to get up and away from their desks at regular intervals, or use standing desks to counteract the effect of sitting down all day.

With a little bit of advice and encouragement, your team can stay healthy all winter, and keep your business going good and strong throughout.

Although we can’t provide them with healthy snacks, we can give them a workplace environment which encourages wellness and productivity. To find out more, feel free to explore our website, or get in touch directly – our team are always pleased to help!

Image: Tim Gouw via Stocksnap.io