Is your office currently full of red-nosed, sore throat, shells of humans? Is your office starting to look more like a sickbay than a work place?
It might be time to implement a few immunity boosting strategies at work!
Here are some quick tips!
PART 2: HOW TO BOOST IMMUNITY IN YOUR WORKPLACE
- Provide an immune boosting office kitchen:
- Get a weekly delivery of fresh fruit and cut-up vegetables for the office kitchen.
- Provide small packs of mixed nuts & seeds.
- Place educational infographics on the kitchen walls.
- Educate and encourage employees to pack healthy lunches:
- Send out healthy lunch box ideas. Here are a few to get you started:
- Fruit.
- Cut up vegetables with hummus, cottage cheese or peanut butter.
- Vegetable soups with wholegrain bread.
- Egg and vegetable frittatas.
- Meat and salad sandwiches on wholegrain bread.
- Nuts and seeds.
- Wholegrain pasta with meat and vegetables mixed through.
- Eggs and salad.
- Lentil-based salads, dahl, or stew.
- Practice & promote workplace hygiene:
- Provide accessible sanitising stations.
- Place visible infographics on hand washing & germ control in bathrooms.
- Clean & disinfect your workspace at the end of every day.
- Partner up with a local health food store or chemist for discounted supplements:
- Think of 10% off all vitamin or mineral supplements if you refer your employees to their store!
- Check out our previous blog (“How to boost immunity at home”) for information on specific micronutrients that might be worth supplementing.
- Organise outdoor meetings – for sunshine & movement:
- Plan walking meetings to promote physical activity as well as get some Vitamin D from the sun.
- If walking is not practical, choose an outdoor setting for some fresh air.
- Provide accessible water coolers:
- Promote hydration by providing visible, attractive and accessible water coolers.
- Encourage calling in sick OR working from home if unwell:
- The risk of transmission can be reduced if employees who are not well stay at home.
- Reduce the stigma around “calling in sick” and encourage employees to take a sick day if they are not well enough to work.
- OR, if only mildly unwell, encourage people to work from home to reduce the spread.
- Ensure your workplace offers adequate sick days/year and sick pay:
- Inadequate sick pay or leave can be a deterrent to calling in sick, leading to infectious people coming into work and spreading their illness.
- Ensure your organisation offers adequate sick leave and pay, in addition to clear expectations or policies around this (E.g., stay at home if you are sick).
- Implement stress-reduction activities during the working day:
- Hire a yoga teacher to come in 1/week for a lunch time yoga class.
- Schedule a mindfulness and/or meditation workshop during busy or stressful periods.
- Start a lunchtime walking group to get people active & out of the office.
- Organise a healthy cooking class for your employees.
- 10. Consider hiring workplace health and wellness consultants to do the leg work for you!
