Being good at the fundamentals of business – developing great products, delivering excellent customer service, marketing and managing the money in your business are vital for success. However, if you aren’t also looking after you and your staff’s wellbeing, this can cause issues. Here are 7 workplace health tips for small business owners.

1. Looking after the physiological needs

The most important of these workplace health tips is making sure that basic physiological needs are met. This means that staff have access to water, food and toilet facilities whilst they are working. When these basic needs aren’t well met, people will be unable to perform optimally.

2. Comfortable and safe working conditions

Following on from basic needs, business owners must provide safe and comfortable working environments for employees. The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 sets out the minimum legal standards that businesses must adhere to. As a good business owner, the better the working environment, the more likely you are to attract and retain happy productive employees.

3. Job security

Workplace health tips are not just about physical health though. Business owners who consider the mental wellbeing of their staff will know that productivity suffers when people don’t feel secure at work. Open communication is one way to help employees understand any changes that are happening, especially during challenging periods such as recessions when there is a greater risk of redundancies and layoffs.

4. Appropriate remuneration and benefits

Feeling that you are being compensated appropriately for the work you do is an important motivating factor for many staff, as well as business owners themselves. A clear pay scale and progression routes can enable employees to benchmark themselves and to understand their development opportunities. This is great for improving mental wellbeing.

5. Sense of community and connection

Humans are herd animals; we crave connection with others. We want to feel a sense of belonging to a community. It takes time and effort to create a cohesive company culture, but that time will repay you over and over in improved attendance, better productivity and reduced churn of your employees.

6. Respect

Respect your staff and they will respect you back. When you don’t have mutual respect, relationships become strained, and this can lead to issues such as anxiety and depression.

7. Reward and recognition

Another of the most important workplace health tips also centres around mental wellbeing. Employees need to feel valued so creating a reward and recognition programme can be a great way to show them how much their efforts are appreciated. Rewards could take the form of a bonus, share options or all-expenses paid days out. For some employees, recognition is even more valued than reward. You could run an employee of the month scheme or have a mechanism for peer-to-peer appreciation. Whatever you decide to do, it will have a beneficial effect on your staff wellbeing.

Looking after your own health as a business owner

Whilst making sure your staff wellbeing needs are catered for, you shouldn’t forget yourself when it comes to implementing workplace health tips. You should practise what you preach and ensure that you get a healthy work-life balance, take time out of your day to move around and get a break from your desk and make sure you switch off after the work day is over. Taking care of your physical and mental wellbeing is important so don’t push yourself too hard and recognise the signs when you need to slow down or step away from your business temporarily. Having a trusted VA who can look after your emails, calendar, travel and so on will enable you to take much needed breaks from time to time so you can be working effectively as possible.

What workplace health tips can you share?

Creating great workplaces has so many lasting benefits to the company and to you and your employees. If you have any other ideas, I’d love to hear about them. Please comment on this blog or connect with me on LinkedIn.

I offer VA services to help small business owners operate more efficiently and effectively. Find out more about how I could help you. Call me on  07932 040454 or drop me a line at .

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