When it comes to your company’s bottom line, there are few things that can have such a negative impact as absenteeism among workers. In fact, according to pre-pandemic figures from an advisory panel to the CDC, absenteeism was costing US companies more than $225 billion a year.
That cost went up substantially due to Covid-19 and although figures are nowhere near as high as they were at the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, absenteeism is still a huge issue for today’s employers. With that said, it is in a company’s best interests to promote health and wellbeing among its workers and here are just three of the things you might consider for your place of business.
1. Focus on Nutrition and Healthy Foods
Believe it or not, food insecurity is more prevalent in our society than you might ever have imagined. With the high cost of healthy, organic fruits and vegetables, the average family simply does without. This includes families where one or more adults in the household have full time employment and much of it is the result of inflation in recent years.
One of the things you might consider providing for your employees is a supplemental healthcare package that has a preloaded healthy food benefits card. These are only good for qualifying healthy food products, and they are preloaded with a given amount at regular intervals. Money not used is not lost and simply circulated back into the system. It’s an amazing way to find ways of providing nutritious foods for your workers and their families.
2. Company Sponsored Fitness Programs
Another thing many companies are doing is finding ways to sponsor fitness programs for employees. Some companies actually have fitness rooms on site so that employees can work out when they are off the clock. Other companies have fitness instructors lead classes like aerobics once weekly and these are offered at times throughout the day so that employees can attend around their scheduled time at work.
Some companies also offer flex hours to any employee who wants to join the workout while they are on the clock. It is proven that healthy and physically fit employees are absent less than those who are in ill health.
3. Flexible Schedules
Given the busy lifestyles of the average employee, flexible schedules are one way to reduce stress on the job and unnecessary absenteeism. It isn’t always possible to be in places where our families need us to be due to hours we are scheduled at work, so some companies offer flexible scheduling if an employee knows in advance times they may need to be away from their job.
Sometimes flex hours include work-from-home arrangements as well. Stress is one of the leading underlying causes of health-related issues which is why offering a less stressful scheduling alternative can help employees relieve the stresses that can, and often do, lead to illness.
These are just three of the ways in which today’s companies are working to promote health and wellbeing in their organizations. With absenteeism responsible for hundreds of billions of dollars in lost revenue each year, it really is in a company’s best interests to work toward better health among their employees. Everybody comes out a winner.
