Singaporeans are living longer and working longer. A supportive health-promoting work environment helps employees maintain a healthy lifestyle and age well. This results in increased productivity and the retention of professional knowledge and experience that older staff can share with their junior colleagues. Here are six tips to cultivate a healthy work environment for everyone.
1. Promoting Health and Wellbeing at Work
Build it around the five pillars of health –‘Eat Wisely, Exercise Regularly, Be Happy, Stop Smoking and Practise Personal Hygiene’.
For example, introduce a smoke-free policy at work, make healthier choices easily available at the staff canteen and encourage staff of similar interests to get together to exercise or play sports.
Related: Poor Office Hygiene
2. Motivate Staff to Form Healthy Habits and Lead a Healthy Lifestyle
Encourage your employees by helping to make it easier for them to pick up and maintain healthy habits. This will, in turn, help them be more empowered and in control of their health.
3. Organise Regular Team-Building Events
There are a number of workplace health promotion ideas which bring employees of all ages together to achieve common goals and make a positive impact. These can also help employees of different generations to better appreciate each other’s strengths and even correct some misconceptions.
4. Promote Healthy Ageing for Older Workers
Resources such as the Positive Ageing Toolkit developed by the Council for Third Age (C3A) are available to workplaces. They have been designed to help seniors understand and reflect on their thoughts, feelings and values about their personal wellbeing.
5. Support Older Workers Better
Through simple but effective interventions, such as paying attention to office ergonomics to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal injuries and being mindful of any changes in their visual and auditory requirements, older workers can be better supported and more empowered in the work environment.
Related: How to Prepare for Work
6. Encourage All Employees to be Fair@Work
Advocate being fair at work. Your employees can start by making their individual commitment to be fair and inclusive at the workplace.
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Contributed By
- Alexandra Hospital