It was a real pleasure to chat with Mary Mullins from the In Business show on Radio Kerry during the week. We spoke about the role employees and employers have to play in making workplaces healthy places to spend time in, we discussed the recommended physical activity guidelines for healthy adults and we even had time to consider what the office of the future might look like with Fitbit's Dublin offices providing the inspiration for that.
Read MoreIt’s important to lay a solid foundation to give yourself every chance of having a healthy and a productive day at work. There will always be factors that impact our day that are outside of our control. How we deal with these unplanned issues and events is important and the more prepared we are the better chance we have of hurdling them successfully without allowing them to negatively impact our day.
There are 5 areas that are fully within our control that I always try to stay on top of. They are the building blocks of my day and lay the foundations for my most productive days at work.
Read MoreWhen I hear the word “snacking” mentioned it often comes with a negative or unhealthy connotation. This should not be the case. Snacking is great way to support a balanced diet and should be encouraged. During a busy day at work, good quality snacks can help get you through the long mornings until lunch and over the final furlong in the afternoon before dinner time. Of course from a nutrition and health perspective, it’s really important to pay attention to the snacks you’re consuming.
Read MoreWorking in an office can be hard work and can be hard on your body. Sitting in front of computer screens for the majority of a 40-hour workweek can cause health problems of many varieties if these problems aren’t in some way mitigated. The good news is there are plenty of things that employees can do for themselves in their offices to head off some of the common health risks, some off their own initiative and some at the suggestion or urging of management. Health insurance benefits on the other hand can be a catch-all for employee health risks at the office, giving employees a way to handle issues as they arise.
Read MoreThe big day is almost here. Ireland's Workplace Wellbeing Day takes place this Friday, April 13th 2018. The great news is that you can still register totally free of charge. Check out my article here to find out all the details including how to register.
I've been receiving so much feedback and questions on Wellbeing Day this year. It's wonderful to see such an interest in this from Irish businesses. I don't think there can be any doubt that employers are switching on to the fact that supporting the health and wellness of their employees is beneficial for everyone involved.
Read MoreEmployee wellness is evolving within a rapidly changing work environment. Companies are now understanding that to be effective, wellness needs to be used as a business strategy, which means moving past the traditional concept of health and wellness in the workplace as a mainly physical approach and focusing, instead, on the concept of developing the whole person. Using corporate wellness as a business strategy not only creates a competitive advantage for your business, but also implements evidence-based corporate wellness programming alongside workforce professional and personal development. At its core, this business strategy looks at what people factors are statistically connected to better business results, rather than focusing solely on the traditional management of risk factors (Body Mass Index, Blood Pressure, Nutrition, Physical Activity) and claims of health care reductions.
Read MoreIn 2001 three groups of the so-called ‘Satanic Mills’ described in Blake’s poem Jerusalem were designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. I’m no poet and I don’t claim to understand it fully, but the meaning of the poem is patently multi-layered, and becomes more opaque the deeper one delves. On a literal level though we can understand, at least intuitively, the scorn which Blake heaped upon these dismal places due in part to the dreadful working conditions. To Blake, these buildings represented the mechanisation of human beings and a cold, unfeeling disregard for our nature, and stood in stark contrast to ‘England’s green and pleasant land’. He saw this, roughly speaking, as a kind of tyranny and since he was a fairly radical Christian, he associated tyranny with the figure of Satan. Some alternative symbolism could be used here depending on your own worldview, but the essential point remains.
Read MoreMeetings are the backbone of the working day for many professions. I can summarise the majority of the meetings I’ve attended as follows:
What do all the above meetings have in common?
I was sitting on my backside for all of them. That is something I believe is worth changing.
Read MoreFriday April 13th 2018 is Ireland's fourth National Workplace Wellbeing Day and is now firmly established as the biggest celebration of workplace wellbeing in the Irish Calendar. I’ve written previously about workplace wellness promotion and about how both employers and employees can play their part in supporting a positive work environment so I’m delighted to help spread the word about this event as ultimately this day represents everything that Office Worker Health is about:
Think about how you feel during your workdays. Maybe you have pain in your neck or back and feel stiff and sore when you stand up from your desk. Perhaps fatigue and irritability set in as you try to focus on projects or meeting discussions.
While there are many factors that influence how we feel during the day, the configuration of your work area – the place where you spend most of your time working, has a major effect on our overall health and well-being.
Take a close look at your work area; the place where you spend the most time working. Now think about how you sit while working. Do your shoulders hunch forward? Is your keyboard so far from you that your arms are extended while typing? Is your chair so low that your low back is rounded over, or so high that your feet are not flat on the floor? Does the lighting seem either too bright or too dim? Do you use a sit-stand desk, but still feel fatigue, aches and stiffness during and after your work days?
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