It’s important to practice healthy eating in the workplace to make sure that your employees are healthy and avoid tardiness and absenteeism due to sickness. But what makes healthy eating? As an employer, what can you do to promote healthy eating practices?
In this post, you’ll learn essential ways you can promote healthy eating at work to increase employee retention, boost productivity, and develop a positive and healthy work environment.
Encourage A Healthy Breakfast
Breakfast is considered the most important meal because you have to make sure that you get the right amount of nutrients and energy to survive the workload, stress, and every day demands. However, many people are always in a rush and miss eating breakfast. What can you do as an employer to ensure that your employees still have access to healthy food?
Here are some suggestions:
- Promote healthy snacking through places like SnackNation, wherein you can find a great healthy snacks guide. These types of businesses allow you to order online and deliver to your workplace. Oatmeal energy bars are a great source of energy less the transfat because manufacturers of healthy snacks avoid unhealthy ingredients, like too much sugar, food coloring, or preservatives.
- Every morning, it’s nice to see a bucket of fresh fruits in the pantry. If you have a budget, offer free fruit baskets in the pantry for everyone. Bananas, apples, and oranges make a healthy breakfast alternative.
Be a Role Model
As a business owner and employer, your employees look up to you not only career-wise but also when it comes to health and fitness. Show your employees that you’re a good role model by making healthy food choices and sharing your best practices.
Here are some ways to influence your employees to practice healthy eating:
- Be friends with your employees on Facebook or create a fan page for your business and share photos or posts about health and fitness topics.
- Give health and fitness freebies and gift certificates as an incentive or reward to top-performing employees.
- Incorporate fun, health challenges and games after meetings and during team building events.
- Bring your team for a treat in places serving great healthy food options.
Encourage Good Eating Habits
Encouraging good eating habits in the workplace is an excellent idea to promote healthy eating at work. Implement company rules about strictly adhering to break times to avoid missing or skipping meals. Also, incorporate a general medical checkup with health and fitness seminars as a part of the continuous learning of your employees.
Here are other ways to encourage good eating habits in the workplace:
- Reward employees who bring healthy food in the office by giving a star or point every time. At the end of the month, reward the best employee who has the most stars accumulated.
- Invite a trusted and reputable dietician, nutritionist, or doctor to conduct a short seminar about healthy eating in the workplace. Ask your employees to raise at least three questions from the experts.
- Encourage your team members to share best eating practices to the rest of the group through work email and your social media fan page.
- Get rid of bad or poor eating habits. Eliminate vending machines full of junk foods and sugary drinks, like soda, and replace them with natural and healthy food. It leaves your employees no choice but to buy and eat what’s available.
Use Digital Technology
As you probably notice, almost all of your employees belong to the Millenials, who love smartphones, mobile apps, the web, and digital devices. Use these gadgets and online tools to help your employees achieve healthy eating.
Here are some examples of gadgets, tools, and devices you can use to encourage your employees to live a healthy lifestyle:
- Smartwatch: It’s a wearable device that makes a great gift for your top employees, which also encourages health and fitness.
- Calorie Count App Calculator: If you’re serious about keeping yourself and your employees healthy and fit, share your favorite calorie count app such as MyFitnessPal, where you can get rid of extra calories by calculating each food serving calorie content and also download recipes.
- Weighing Scale: It’s a good idea to give a weighing scale to your employees as a Christmas gift or special prize, as a way of increasing awareness on current health statistics which could influence decision-making when it comes to diet and nutrition.
Conclusion
If you want to promote healthy eating practices in the workplace, it should start from you. Assess yourself and determine your weakest and strongest points. Be open to suggestions and criticisms. Collaborate and take appropriate actions, like ordering healthy snacks for everyone, eating nutritious food in team outings, and serve as a good role model to your employees.