A Healthy Workplace - Blog 1

Businesses realize that in order to be successful, it has to retain and maintain a satisfied, motivated workforce. While they acknowledge that compensation, recognition, and advancement opportunities contribute to employee satisfaction and retention, the quality of the work environment must factor in as well.

Most Canadian workers spend more than half of their waking day, during a typical week, working and commuting to and from their place of work. When we look at the competing demands of work, family and/or personal responsibilites, it often mean less time or energy to be engaged in preventative behaviours like physical activity. These pressures not only make it difficult for a person to be active but often increases stress levels that can also lead to other physical and emotional health issues such as unhealthy eating, tobacco use and substance abuse.

So how do most employers cope with this situation? They allow staff to take a lead role in redesigning their work space to ensure it reflects the needs and wishes of the staff in creating a healthy work environment. This may involve focusing on a number of aspects of physical design such as lighting, color and art, and ergonomics, but it also allows for more proactive measures, for example, increasing physical activity and healthy eating, decreasing tobacco use and managing stress in the employeee population.

Some important contributing factors are as follows. Increasing employee's awareness of benefits and directing them to information and resources that will help them make wise decisions. There is the need to develop healthy living skills and provide internal support to maintain those practices. When employers create a supporting environment for employees to make healthy choices, it creates a new culture. Employers also need to provide information to assist employees in setting up policies and programs for healthy choices.