Today I attended a business breakfast and the guest speaker’s topic was on The Green Workplace. The business group was Human Resources professionals, so the focus of the morning was options to make the workplace healthier for employees.
The speaker, Jan Dacri offered several suggestions for accomplishing a healthier workplace. Her overall message was that a healthy workplace causes healthy employees. Healthy employees mean healthy business. This is a growing trend worldwide.
First she discussed that the management and HR team should be healthy themselves. That would start with building good habits in the three key aspects of life: health, relationships, and work. Then one needs to work on the 7 essential habits of natural health:
· Breathing – feed the brain oxygen
· Water – keep the brain and other cells hydrated
· Nutrients – stressed vegetables, fruit
· Exercise the body – the body needs you to work up a sweat several times a week
· Exercise the mind – work on the memory – make the brain work
· Relax – rest – really rest
· Self-talk / visualization
After working on yourself, work on the work place. Key elements that can make a workplace healthier are adding plants, offer a place to rest in the day, and modify lighting.
· Plants will add oxygen to the workplace.
· Plants also offer comfort and relaxation to people.
· Full spectrum lighting offers sunlight type lighting that a body needs.
· This type of lighting can increase productivity as employees gain the effects they might with natural sunlight.
· A place to rest is necessary for people and research shows it can increase productivity.
· Many countries, and even some employers in the US, are even going so far as to offer nap rooms!
Jan has two websites where she offers services for MindBody Tuneups (the first part described above) and a Green & Healthy Workplace. Her theory here is that taking good care of the human part of human resources is more important in business than ever before.
For more on Jan, see www.jandacri.com or www.mindbodytuneup.com .
17 years ago
I fully support this idea. We react to our immediate environment. Live in filth, feel filthy. Work in a terrible place, feel terrible. It's simple. Adding plants, somewhere to relax, even a nap room (lol) reduces stress and anxiety. We are in our jobs for 8 hours a day, usually sunlight hours. That can't me healthy.
ReplyDelete