We don’t need to tell you the importance of maintaining a healthy blood pressure personally. We all know someone who has suffered from low, or more usually, high blood pressure.
High blood pressure has very few symptoms however the consequences can be devastating, the causes are vast – from too much stress at work – and at home – right through to bad eating habits, lack of exercise and a generally poor lifestyle.
As an employer, or HR professional, it is in your interest to support your team, where possible. The promotion of good health habits and improved work/life balance in turn leads to good a work ethic and increased productivity!
Workplace blood pressure screening, health education, and lifestyle counselling helps to identify employees with high blood pressure and can help them to control it. This could be included within PDP’s and via good internal communications.
However, businesses are ever busy, so you may need to gain external support with this.
What does this involve?
Screening and lifestyle counselling, or work-placed health screening, is very easy to do. There are a few companies in the UK who deliver this, as a formal programme, or can help you to achieve best practice.
What is more difficult is gaining buy-in from managers and getting sign-off.
This as ever, can be overcome by putting forward a good case for why it is important. It’s all about the money!
Proof is key
Staff well-being translates directly on the bottom-line.
If a high productive operative, or high performing person has a week off work, the company really feels the crunch!
As a simple example: If a salesperson sells £1000 a day, the company will be down £5000 per week. Extrapolate that, across your whole sales team… and…well, you know where we’re going!
Keep good records
It is therefore important to keep good absence records, and have appropriate conversations with your team, when they have any time off work. The best advice is: be proactive, nip it in the bud.
Remember, you can’t do anything about it, unless you know it’s going on.
You know what you know, you don’t know what you don’t know…
So be sure you have all the information you possible can. So, ask the right questions.
Top tips for Blood Pressure support at work
- Ban the charity sweets (donate directly instead)
- Keep a fruit bowl in the staff food area
- Monitor the vending machines/ fruit machines
- Pin-up health posters in staff areas
- Include health tips in staff newsletters
- Enforce breaks and lunches
- Add health questions to your personal development meetings
- Practice what you preach
- Talk openly with managers
- And most importantly, talk openly with staff
If you need help with blood pressure monitoring and health promotion in your workplace get in touch today to find out more about how we can help you to achieve more.
