When your employees go to the vending machine for a snack, do you know if they are making healthy choices? Employees who consistently make poor food choices, which can often lead to minor and, sometimes, severe health issues, could have a direct impact on your bottom line. Stressing healthy nutrition in the workplace might encourage a healthier lifestyle — in and out of the office — and could be your ticket to avoiding a disability claim.
Mary Malone, RN, BSN, CPDM
Posts by Mary Malone
The HR impact on managing absence and disability
Workplace productivity is often a crucial contributing factor toward your company’s bottom line. Often, the bulk of the responsibility to maintain productivity falls on the HR department. With continued cuts to staffing and budgets, you may agree that doing the best you can with what you have is becoming increasingly more difficult. But, as an HR professional, you can play a key role in addressing productivity challenges. One way to start is by partnering with a qualified return-to-work team focused on managing absence and disability through a program that features a dedicated on-site consultant.
Three ways to stress less before a doctor visit
The time leading up to a doctor’s appointment can cause an employee to be distracted at work. Thinking about a yearly checkup or knowing the appointment is for a specific health issue can create worry. Add to that hard-to-decipher medical language, and the confusion or misunderstandings can build. For employees, the worry and confusion can take a toll on productivity.
Want to stay sharp? Keep your brain healthy!
As portions of our workforce continue to age, encouraging mind-healthy activities and habits is always a good idea. You may be familiar with some of the more obvious challenges of an aging workforce, but have you considered the impact of Alzheimer’s disease?
Per The Alzheimer’s Association,[1] most individuals who have the disease are over age 65 (and there is a 50-50 chance of developing the disease after age 85) and will face dreaded loss of memory, analytical skills and the ability to learn new tasks — all of which are critical to maintaining workplace productivity.
The Association also points out that well-established risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease are genetics and aging.[2] Although aging and genetics are two risk factors we can’t control, adopting healthy brain life habits might delay or prevent the appearance of Alzheimer’s disease.[3]
Flu season already? 3 tips to avoiding and fighting the flu
“Flu Shots Available.” These signs are already popping up in pharmacies and drug stores around the country. The flu, or influenza, costs organizations approximately $10.4 billion yearly in direct costs for hospitalizations and outpatient visits, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Yes, flu season will soon be upon us again, and seeing how costly it can be, now is the best time to get your employees prepared for a healthier and productive year. Here are three suggested steps from the CDC to help your employees prevent and fight the flu :
Fighting the negative effects of inactivity
A recent New York Times article cites interesting research on something many of us do every day — sit. Dr. James Levine of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. calls excessive sitting “a lethal activity.”
Levine’s studies have shown that multiple small movements throughout the day make more of an impact than counting calories and doing aerobic workouts.