It’s the season of sniffles, and if you work in a shared office that means you’re at a higher risk of catching anything (and everything) that’s going round. Here’s how to help your business make it through winter as healthily and happily as possible.
Allow your staff to work from home
The most effective way you can manage illness in your office is by establishing a work from home policy where possible. A good work from home policy means that everyone within your business has equipment that they can take home with them each day, like a laptop, and a way to access internal work systems from home, such as a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
By establishing a work from home policy, you’re able to prevent illness and viruses spreading around your office unnecessarily, reducing sickness related absences. When someone on your team has Covid-19, or another contagious illness, you can request that they work from home. Your business can keep running as usual, and your other employees are protected. To find out how to set up a work from home policy, check out our article.
Sickness policy
A sickness policy outlines how your business manages in those instances where an employee is too unwell to work; a good sickness policy means that employees are honest when they’re ill rather than coming into work and spreading germs. Keeping track of sickness and absences allows you to develop strong relationships with your employees by demonstrating that your business cares about their health. It also shows staff that you’re paying attention to absences, and will follow up with staff to ensure that those absences are genuine.
Remember, whilst management needs to know how an unwell employee is managing, and what might be resulting in an absence, the rest of the office don’t. Sharing this information unnecessarily is a breach of trust between yourself and your employee, and could get your business in trouble with GDPR.
Holidays and breaks
According to Harvard Business Review, taking holidays improves your cognitive, emotional and physical health, and that employees taking a holiday from work improves their end of year performance. Management can help facilitate this by keeping track of holidays, and ensuring that employees take their holidays across the year, so they get an opportunity to rest and recover.
This also extends to lunch breaks, and shorter breaks throughout the day. According to this study, employees who take their breaks are more productive throughout the day, and more creative. Taking breaks away from the screen, moving around, changing the space or just socialising with colleagues promotes mental wellbeing and health, which improves your employees’ mood and outlook.
Clean shared spaces
Since the pandemic, many of us have become much more aware about the importance of regularly washing our hands to prevent the spread of illness. This also extends to shared spaces that your employees use regularly, such as break rooms and bathrooms. Keeping these places clean helps your staff stay healthy (and keeps your business looking great too).
If your business uses hotdesking, this is enormously important. Shared equipment, such as laptops, phones and keyboards can facilitate the spread of germs across employees when they aren’t regularly cleaned. Have tech-friendly cleaning supplies on hand, and model this to your employees; this will help equipment remain operational and easy to use, and protect your staff from illness in the process.
