Employees spend up to 40 hours a week in the office. It is therefore important that this is a healthy workplace. The importance of health in the workplace should not be underestimated, as occupational illnesses can often have long-term health consequences. To provide your employees with an optimally healthy workplace and ensure their well-being, we have put together a few tips.
Health in the workplace is not an immensely important topic for no reason – occupational illnesses are not uncommon and many employees are also off sick in the long term. Apart from the consequences this has for your company, the health of your employees should be your top priority. This includes both physical and mental health.
Problems that can arise due to a lack of health-promoting measures include:
As an employer, you have a moral and legal duty to promote the health of your employees in the best possible way.
One of the first and most important things you should pay attention to is ergonomics at the workplace. Back pain, tension and headaches are typical work-related ailments and the result of poor posture and a lack of ergonomic office equipment.
.You can only influence how your employees sit down to a limited extent, for example in training sessions in which you sensitize employees to healthy sitting at the workplace. What you can do beyond this is to ensure ergonomic office chairs and desks. This means that the desk should be at a height of between 68 and 72 centimetres and ideally be adjustable so that employees can sometimes work standing up. Ergonomic design should also be ensured for other office equipment and hardware components such as chairs, screens and computer mice.
As banal as this may sound at first, lighting and air conditions also have a significant influence on health in the workplace. These can make a serious contribution to a negative or positive working environment. Constant unnatural light can affect mood and concentration without employees even realizing it. The same applies to the air conditions.
In open-plan offices in particular, a lot of stale air can quickly build up, which can lead to headaches, allergies or even colds. This can also go largely unnoticed while everyone concentrates on their work - until the symptoms suddenly appear. To prevent this, it is advisable to regularly ventilate, provide sufficient natural light and improve the air conditions by planting plants in the office.
First and foremost, it is up to the employees to ensure that they exercise and eat healthily, because as an employer you only have limited influence on their decisions. What you can do, however, is to provide your employees with sufficient opportunities to promote their sporting activities and balanced diet.
If your office has a canteen, make sure that healthy meals are on offer. Many employers have also entered into cooperations with fitness studios to offer employees discounted opportunities to exercise. In office jobs in particular, physical balance is important to prevent tension and promote mental health.
Another important factor for health in the workplace is the noise level. A constant background noise is usually unavoidable in open-plan offices. However, this does not mean that you have no options for keeping the volume level to a minimum.
You can use sound-absorbing walls or furniture as well as plants and furnishings to ensure a muffled background noise level. This in turn leads to more relaxed, focused and healthier employees. Soundproofing in the office is therefore a factor that should not be underestimated when it comes to optimum health in the workplace.
As a partner for professional conference room and media technology, we at ComPeri have many years of experience in equipping numerous offices. We are happy to support you in the design of your premises. From the conception üover the installation to the subsequent maintenance, we are at your side in the greater Munich area and beyond on request. We take care of both your non-technical and your technical equipment. This includes all hardware and software components.
Do you need or are you interested in our support in designing a healthy workplace or do you still have questions regarding our range of services? We look forward to hearing from you!