Having recently started exercising more myself, I am beginning to see the benefits in my work, not suffering from after lunch sleepiness being the most evident. Katie Langley’s article in business connected (Page 16) supports what I have noticed in myself with interesting statistics.
Employees in good health are 3 times more productive than employees in poor health and make 60% fewer errors than their poorer health colleagues. Surly this is encouragement to employers to provide employees with the opportunity to be physically active. It is not just the obvious health benefits and alertness that both employee and employer benefit from; employees in poor health take 9 more days of sick leave compare to healthier employees. All at the expense of the business surely losing 30mins of an employers work a day to go for a walk is more economically adventitious than 9 days a year especially if they will then function 3 times more effectively.
Sums I worked out; we work around 240 days a year with bank holidays and annual leave an 8 hour day so around 1920 hours a year. Loosing 9 days brings that down to 1848, however making it 7.5 hours a day leaving time for a walk then we work 1800 hours a year yes this is less. But in theory that is equivalent to 5400 hours if we are three times more efficient. Obviously this is all very rough and has no academic quality however it does put Langley’s data into perspective even if we only worked 1.5 times more efficiently it would still be more than being chained to the desk all day!
By supporting and promoting a healthy active life style the risks of contracting influenza and the common cold are minimised. These illnesses being brought into the office spread like wild fire and can lead to numerous sick days, all chipping away at the overall capital of the businesses. Other disease such as type 2 diabetes, obesity and heart disease will reduce work productivity and the risk of development can be reduced by daily activity.
This is what Health and Wealth is all about, not making physically fit highly efficient robot like employees but making it so people want to come to work where they are in a comfortable environment where they can just take the odd couple of minutes to have some fresh air get their blood pumping to they come back to the desk more refreshed and able to work more efficiently.