The Case For Occupational Therapy In Your Business
Occupational therapy at your business is nothing to shy away from. In fact, you can provide massive boosts to your company if you embrace it. With a focus on mental health, you can improve the physical and emotional welfare of your employees. Here are some examples.
Provide a Comfortable and Safe Space
It helps to make a place of work that is good for your physical and mental health. This can include furniture and tools that are easy on the body, the right lighting, and a clean, well-organized workspace. This is based on science. Specialist mental health furniture is a good place to start. By making sure the workplace is ergonomic and free of health and safety risks, you can help keep people from getting hurt and improve their physical and mental health.
Allow Flexibility for Occupational Therapy at Your Business
A recent study found that about 20% of us work for companies that don’t offer flexibility. Still, you can really help your employees if you are open to what they want. For example, you can let employees change their work schedules or workspaces to meet their physical or mental health needs. This can be done by letting them work from home, having flexible hours, or making changes to their workspace to fit their needs. Flexible work hours also make a big difference.
Start a Company Wellness Program
Wellness programs can make a big difference in the health of your employees as a whole. There are often yoga or exercise classes right there. And support for employees who do these things on their own time. For example, you could pay for their gym memberships or work with small businesses in the area that focus on health. As a result, all of your employees will feel more welcome and supported at work because your staff will be doing things together.
Amend Your Work Culture Towards Positivity
It helps to make the workplace welcoming, supportive, and free of discrimination and harassment. This can help employees feel like their work is valued. Many modern businesses are making positive changes as they address modern issues in the workplace. These include:
- Place a lot of value on each employee’s unique ideas and experiences.
- Set up clear rules to stop discrimination and bullying, and act quickly.
- Make it easier for people to talk by making the environment safe and welcoming.
- Give everyone the same chances, no matter their race, religion, gender, etc.
- Take every complaint of discrimination seriously and act on it right away.
A positive environment can help your employees do a better job mentally. It will also help find and keep good employees and boost productivity and morale overall. Additionally, this can help your business save money by maximizing the overall productivity of the staff at your business.
Offer Counseling and Therapy Services
As an employer, you can help your employees improve their physical and mental health by giving them tools. For example, you could give your employees access to counseling services, financial advice, and other tools to help them deal with the stress of modern life. By giving your employees these resources, you can show that you care about their health and want them to have a good balance between work and life. But you have to be 100% committed to this.
Try Local Occupational Therapy at Your Business
You can also work with professionals in occupational therapy to find and fix things that are getting in the way of employee health and well-being. This could mean giving managers and supervisors training and resources on how to help employees with disabilities. And you can work with local therapists to create and run programs to help employees in the area stay healthy at work. This will help ensure your employees stay as healthy as they possibly can.
Provide Appropriate Development
It’s always good for your business to give employees opportunities to learn and grow in areas related to occupational therapy. Most of these are about things like health and safety at work, ergonomics, and manual handling. Short-term, these will help keep people from getting hurt and improve their physical and mental health. But you can build long-term skills through education and by encouraging employees to go to events and conferences to boost their self-confidence.
Summary
There are numerous advantages of occupational therapy in your business. Primarily this includes vastly improved employee mental health. To get started, you can provide a comfortable space for working, work towards a positive work culture and offer training and development.