Provision of subsidised healthy lunches for staff could lead to higher productivity

The holy grail of modern business is productivity: valuable beyond measure, but often frustratingly elusive. Add to the mix an economic climate globally that is, at best, uncertain and, at worst, promises to impact economies negatively for upward of a decade.

So a healthy, committed and productive workforce is arguably more important now than at any time in our recent history. Trouble is, it is not only bosses who are feeling the strain.

Frequently, company owners and managers assume low levels of productivity are down to workers not being engaged or committed to their jobs. The truth is that often, poor performance or excessive sick leave can be attributed, in part, to the stresses and excesses of our collective modern lifestyle.

As a generation, it is true that many of us fail to exercise or eat the kind of nutritious and well-balanced meals we should.

The impact of ill-health on the bottom line for commerce is well documented, and the stress on healthy living has never been more acute. Bizarrely though, a ‘hard worker’ today is someone who, for the most part, is desk-bound, rather than someone engaged in physical activity.

In these austere times, then, the notion of allocating budget toward an employee nutrition or wellness programme may seem a luxury few can afford. It may well, however, be a measure you cannot afford not to implement.

Consider firstly the real hard cash cost to your business of absenteeism. As a country, South Africa’s annual bill for absenteeism exceeds R12 billion.

So, spending money on employee nutrition or ‘lunch programmes’ could actually lower costs. Among the key areas in which you as a business owner or manger will benefit are:

• Decreased absenteeism;
• Reduction in staff turnover and associated recruitment costs;
• Increased productivity, health and morale; and
• Fewer claims for workers compensation

The practice of employee-sponsored nutrition programmes is already widespread in the United States and some parts of Europe, and has impacted positively on the overall health and wellness of employees – leading to dramatically improved productivity and reduced absenteeism, particularly when aligned to a wellness programme that includes exercise, such as discounted gym memberships or work training sessions.

Some may question how providing merely one meal a day for their workforce could have a significant impact on their overall health?

Consider, though, that the modern worker can spend anywhere from 30% to literally half of their working hours at the office, and that the midday meal contributes significantly to the overall food intake of any one day. Likewise, nearly every employee needs to eat while at work; and by ensuring the lunch meal is healthy and nutritionally balanced, it often has a knock-on effect as to what constitutes healthy eating, which carries over into their wider food choices.

A further note of interest is that often it is more beneficial for the employer to sponsor only a portion of the total cost of the lunch programme, as it has been proven that when workers ‘pay’ for the lunch, they perceive the value proposition as being far greater than when it is simply paid for by the company. In other words, the old maxim: “that which is free has no value”, holds sway.

www.irvinebartlett.co.za