If you think of the biggest challenges for your business, what makes the list of the top three? You might think that your customer service, cash-flow management, and product and service quality are the keys to a successful business. Those are certainly all great choices, but what about employee absenteeism? According to Forbes, lost productivity due to absenteeism costs American businesses billions. The professional sector, for example, loses $24.2 billion a year to absenteeism.
Most Common Causes of Absenteeism
The causes of absenteeism run the gamut from disengaged employees to family issues to workers with poor work ethics. However, as statistics from Gallup show, the biggest cause of absenteeism is health. Unhealthy employees cost American businesses 450 million days of work and $153 billion in lost productivity annually.
What Can You Do to Get Your Workers Healthy?
86% of all American workers are either overweight or obese. If you want to improve their health and reduce the impact of absenteeism, you can address the problem in two ways:
- Encourage Your Employees to Walk-As the Mayo Clinic suggests, walking helps maintain a healthy weight, improves mood, and helps ward of diseases, like diabetes. By encouraging your employees to take a 10-minute walk on their breaks, you can both reap the benefits.
- Offer Nutritious Food through Catering Agencies-It should be no secret that our diets have a direct impact on our moods, our weight, and our productivity. Catering services can give your employees an easy, enjoyable way to improve their health and save your company money. Using a sandwich catering company is a great way to deliver a food that everybody loves and offer health benefits to your workers.
What Sort of Food Should You Request from Your Sandwich Catering Service?
- Turkey Sandwiches
- Sandwiches Featuring Leafy Greens
- Vegetarian Sandwiches Using Hummus
As any food catering service knows, there are few better foods you can offer your employees to reduce their waistlines and boost their productivity than turkey. As Scientific American points out, turkey contains high doses of an amino acid known as tryptophan. This acid is essential to the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter shown to promote relaxation, healthy sleeping habits, and weight loss. You may have heard that eating turkey can actually tire people out. However, as the experts at WebMD write, you would have to eat huge quantities of turkey to take in enough serotonin for it to have any sedative effects.
Ask your sandwich catering company if they offer sandwiches with leafy greens. The Huffington Post writes that leafy greens, like carrot tops, chickweed, and others, are packed with vitamins that promote healthy living. They also taste great when paired with healthy proteins, like turkey and hummus.
Whether you have vegetarian employees or not, offering a meat-free choice through a sandwich catering service is an excellent way to promote health. Hummus, as Livestrong suggests, is high in fiber, healthy monounsaturated fats from olive oil, and vitamins, like zinc, magnesium, and iron. In unison, these make up a food that can play a powerful role in maintaining a healthy weight.
If you’re tired of unhealthy employees ruining your productivity, do something about it. By promoting better dietary habits with office catering services and light physical activity, you can improve your business and the lives of your employees. For more information, read this website.