2020 has caused an upheaval to everything we thought we knew.
Even in Brisbane, where we were among the luckiest in the world, our city shut down for almost three months.
But look at it this way – the impacts of COVID have actually provided us with a chance to make some creative and resourceful changes that we have previously pushed down our priority list. Now more than ever, employee health and wellness can become a top priority. Despite the comparably low numbers of COVID cases in Queensland, our testing numbers exceed 1,348,000.
This indicates that almost 1.4 million employees have needed to take time off work in 2020 to test and quarantine, with a current total of 1,199 positive tests. It is more vital than ever that the immune systems of employees are running at 100% to avoid the common cold and flu; the symptoms that require a COVID test and quarantine.
Improving your health in 2021
Moving into 2021 provides companies with an excellent opportunity to place a refreshed focus on the health of the people in their teams. At Cultivar Health, we break health down into five controllable pillars. Here are some simple tools you can implement to improve the immune system of yourself and your employees:
1. Exercise
Why: Regular exercise can help boost your immune system and fight off infections and viruses.
How: Invest in a form of exercise that excites and motivates you. You know you should go for a run each day, but it’s much easiest to hit snooze on your alarm when you have not made the commitment to anyone but yourself. We suggest CrossFit as we believe in the training philosophy and the impact of the community (more on that in relationships), but find the form of exercise that will encourage you to not snooze the alarm. Your commitment is more powerful if you do it in a group, and the best way for a company to encourage this is to provide on-site training for their staff.
2. Nutrition
Why: Eating nutritious food gives your body the ability to fight off disease and infection. Eating processed foods not only encourages weight gain, but they have no benefit towards your health.
How: Anything that does not have a label on it is a great place to start. You do not need to read the nutritional table on broccoli to know it should be included in your lunch. As a company, what you are providing in your office fridge will be the obvious choice for your employees. Try to introduce options outside of Coke and chocolate to beat the 3pm slump. An easy start is to replace Coke with Coke zero and replace chocolate with a healthier alternative. We love RX bars as a tasty and balanced alternative, which you can purchase here:
3. Sleep
Why: Your body recovers and builds immunity when you sleep. If you are sleeping less than seven hours a night, you are robbing your body of that opportunity.
How: The attitude to sleep requires a cultural shift. Encouraging and rewarding 14-hour days in the office does not promote a healthy attitude towards restorative sleep. If your employee is spending that long at work, it limits the likelihood that they even have time to spend seven hours a night in bed, let alone asleep. The first step is to encourage honesty in time sheets. You cannot track what your employees are not telling you, and it is common place for timesheets to be treated as a formality. Make sure your time sheets are an honest representation of your employee’s hours, and review those hours regularly.
4. Mindset
Why: High stress leads to a lowered immune system and long term, can cause heart disease.
How: Implement mandatory lunch breaks AWAY from work desks. It is commonly shared as a point of pride by busy people that “I just eat lunch at my desk because I do not have time for a break”. This is not supporting efficiency, nor does it support that employee being in your company long term.
5. Relationships
Why: A Harvard University study that has spanned over the course of 75 years, followed approximately 700 men over the course of their lives to assess the most important component to health. The conclusion: “people who fared the best were the people who leaned into relationships, with family, with friends, with community.”
How: Provide your employees with opportunities to lean into their work relationships. Your people are much more likely to engage in any of the above four methods if they are surrounded by others also engaging in improving their health. Providing on-site 30-minute group exercise classes around work hours makes it much harder for your employees to make excuses about their lack of time. It also provides an opportunity for your people to spend time outside of work discussions with their colleagues, who they spend more time with than their own family.
Cultivar Health can help you and your employees make 2021 your healthiest year yet. Let us assist you in your five pillars of health by contacting us here.
