Member Article

Healthy body, healthy mind, healthy profit

With figures released by Public Health England revealing the UK’s life expectancy is on the up, you may have been forgiven for indulging in an extra biscuit (or two) with your morning brew. However, upon further inspection, the quality of our longevity is less than optimal, thanks to disease and illness.

Forty percent of ill health can be attributed to our lifestyle choices, namely poor diets and smoking habits, and it’s estimated that on average 131 million working days are lost each year as a result.

At Odyssey Systems we care for our staff, and pride ourselves on the quality, and efficiency, of the service we deliver, which is why we have a number of initiatives in place to improve the wellbeing of our team and satisfy our moral obligation as an employer.

Employees are at the heart of any business and, in our case, are certainly the driving force behind many of our successes. By introducing a stop-smoking incentive, providing healthy foods and accommodating flexible working systems, we’ve seen a marked reduction in absenteeism caused by illness, improved productivity and created a generally more positive atmosphere.

The more authoritarian among you may dismiss these measures as ‘soft’ management, but when you look into the ‘hard’ facts of the situation you may just change your mind.

Putting aside the obvious, and undeniable, benefits that come from not smoking and maintaining a healthy diet, adopting a flexible approach to working and being a more accommodating employer can really help harness the power of your workforce.

Unlike previous generations, we’re always no more than a swipe away from instant connectivity; unified communications offers us the chance to recalibrate the work-life balance for everyone’s gain.

Employees have a right to request flexible working, and by allowing the lone parent to work remotely when their child is ill, or letting the senior executive who travels the length of the country to use video conferencing often, are a couple of the many ways in which telecommunications, in particular unified communications can produce a happy, productive workforce.

With the UK’s best thinkers trying to solve the productivity puzzle, maybe the answer has been under our noses all this time. Two thirds of businesses have said that technology has had a positive impact on their productivity and nearly half of senior managers already using it said increases efficiency. Which leaves the question, why isn’t a more modern approach to working not yet commonplace?

We’ll leave that one to you.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mike Odysseas .