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Archive for category: Healthy Workplace

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Six Simple Ways to Improve Nutrition As A Team

Julie Entwistle, C.Dir. (c), MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

It is no secret that obesity is on the rise across North America.  In fact, a 2014 study shows that obesity now accounts for 8.6% of youth and 25% of the adult population.  (Després, Alméras, & Gauvin, 2014)   The leading causes of this “obesity epidemic” are sedentary lifestyles, lack of physical activity and poor nutritional choices.

With the stressful lives being led by our generation, taking time to prepare and bring healthy lunches and snacks to work is difficult.  Yet, without a healthy snack or lunch, the tendency is to purchase food that is not healthy, or to under-eat which, believe it or not, can also cause obesity as our body works to “hold onto” every calorie in fear of starvation.

Employers may ask “why do I care if my team is eating unhealthy”, but the answer is obvious:  a healthy workforce is a productive workforce and workplace absences for health-related problems (including obesity, heart disease, diabetes etc) are hugely disruptive.

Here are a few suggestions that can be implemented in the workplace to help improve the health of your staff and organization:

  1. Schedule Regular Healthy Pot-Luck Lunches — choose a day of the week and have each person bring in a healthy lunch item for a team-building activity.
  2. Bring a Colleague a Lunch — people are more likely to prepare healthy meals for others than for themselves, so capitalize on this and arrange for “bring a colleague a lunch week” and see the efforts people will go to in order to promote the health of a colleague.
  3. Recipe of the Week — each week choose a member of the team to share make their favourite healthy meal or snack and bring it in to share with the team.  Have them send each member a recipe via email for them to make on their own.
  4. Education Opportunities — bring in a nutritionist, dietician or health coach to speak to the team about how to create healthy meals and snacks to help fuel their day at work.
  5. Brown Bag Week — encourage the team to have a “brown bag” week.  Eating out can lead to unhealthy choices and lack of portion control.  Bringing your own lunch can help to ensure you are getting the nutrients you need and fueling productivity the entire day.
  6. Russian Lunch Roulette — like secret Santa, have everyone bring a balanced lunch and randomly select who gets what lunch.  It always tastes better to consume something made by someone else, so people should enjoy the surprise lunch they end up with.  Of course, plan ahead for any allergies/food requests and ask people to put sauces/condiments on the side to be added only if desired.

In the end, lead by example.  Employers have the ability to create opportunities that can help their workforce to engage in healthy habits.  Use the strength of your organizational alliance to bring people together to help them achieve healthy goals.  Everyone will benefit, including the organization.

 

Previously posted August 2015

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Healthy Workplace O-Tip of the Week: Don’t Wrist Injury

Our O-Tip of the week series we will be providing valuable “OT-Approved Life Hacks” to provide you with simple and helpful solutions for living. 

October is Occupational Therapy Month and Healthy Workplace Month!  In celebration, for the month of October, we will be providing you with OT-Approved tips for a healthier day at work.

Keep wrists in a neutral position.  Whether it be for keyboarding, use of a mouse or desk work, it is important that wrists are maintained in a neutral posture. This avoids the potential for overuse and injury due to fixed postures of flexion. Try altering positions or using equipment such as a wrist rest to support the forearms.

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Healthy Workplace O-Tip of the Week: Follow the rule of 90

Our O-Tip of the week series we will be providing valuable “OT-Approved Life Hacks” to provide you with simple and helpful solutions for living.

October is Occupational Therapy Month and Healthy Workplace Month! In celebration, for the month of October, we will be providing you with OT-Approved tips for a healthier day at work.

For those who are required to maintain sitting positions for long periods of time at their workstation, the rule of 90 degrees should be followed. This means that while sitting at a desk, a person’s knees, hips and elbows should each be resting at 90 degrees. This angle falls in line with our natural body proportions and biomechanics, and helps support proper posture and body positioning.

 

To learn more about proper posture and positioning check out our OT-V video, Body Mechanics.

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Healthy Workplace O-Tip of the Week: Properly Set Up Your Screen

Our O-Tip of the week series we will be providing valuable “OT-Approved Life Hacks” to provide you with simple and helpful solutions for living.

October is Occupational Therapy Month and Healthy Workplace Month!  In celebration, for the month of October, we will be providing you with OT-Approved tips for a healthier day at work.

Many jobs today require long periods of screen time. If this is the case for your workstation, make sure that there is an arm’s length distance between your eyes and the screen. Also, make sure that the top of the monitor or screen is level with your forehead. This allows for the head and neck to remain in a neutral position by avoiding continued periods of looking up or down. If a job requires frequent paper reading or phone use alongside computer use, consider a document holder or headset.

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Healthy Workplace O-Tip of the Week: Put a Stop to Sitting Disease

Our O-Tip of the week series we will be providing valuable “OT-Approved Life Hacks” to provide you with simple and helpful solutions for living. 

October is Occupational Therapy Month and Healthy Workplace Month!  In celebration, for the month of October, we will be providing you with OT-Approved tips for a healthier day at work.

There are many negative health effects of sitting for extended periods of time.  Studies show that in the long-term “sitting disease” can lead to increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, and a decreased lifespan.  A great way to beat sitting disease is to build movement into your day.  We recommend setting a reminder, once per hour, to get up and move.  Walk around the office, take the stairs to the lobby and back up, physically go and talk to a co-worker.  However you decide to move, using regular reminders will help!

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Healthy Workplace O-Tip of the Week: Follow the 20-20-20 Rule

Our O-Tip of the week series we will be providing valuable “OT-Approved Life Hacks” to provide you with simple and helpful solutions for living.

October is Occupational Therapy Month and Healthy Workplace Month!  In celebration, for the month of October, we will be providing you with OT-Approved tips for a healthier day at work.

Staring at a screen all day? Try applying the 20-20-20 rule… your eyes will thank you for it! Here’s how it works: Every 20 minutes look at something 20 feet away for 20 seconds. Get into the habit and you will significantly reduce the risk of vision-related headache and fatigue.

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The Importance of Ergonomics

I’m sure you’ve heard the term, “ergonomics” before, but do you know what it means and more importantly, how it could benefit your organization?

Ergonomics is a catch-all phrase for the process of ensuring the body is in an appropriate position when completing daily tasks. Sitting, standing, bending, lifting – all these movements require the proper ergonomic position of the legs, spine, and arms to promote comfort and productivity, and to reduce the risk of physical injury.  Proper ergonomics is often most important at work, as this is where you spend the majority of your time.

Everyone deserves to be comfortable at work – from the front line staff to the CEO. When people are comfortable they are happier, more productive, feel valued and supported, and are less likely to leave work due to physical injury from poor office ergonomics.

Check out our informative video for information on how an Occupational Therapist can help in your office by keeping people at work, enhancing productivity, reducing costs, and promoting employee morale and satisfaction.

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Do You Listen to Music While You Work?

Music at work… a distraction or a helpful part of your working environment?  The following article care of Inc Magazine discusses the science behind how music affects the brain and provides insight into the best times to play some tunes, and the circumstances where a quiet environment is more beneficial.

Inc Magazine:  What Listening to Music at Work Does to Your Brain (It’s Pretty Amazing)

We want to hear from you… do you listen to music while you work?  And… do you find it helpful or distracting? 

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Protecting Client Confidentiality in Public: Laptops and Phones

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

My recent blog “Confidentiality in a Coffee Shop:  Conducting Business in Private Places” highlighted the things professionals need to keep in mind when having private conversations in public spaces.  But the issue of privacy does not just include conversations that can be overheard.  It also includes using our electronics to carry out business anywhere where our screen could be visible to others. 

I was at two conferences recently where I was able to clearly see the work of others who were multi-tasking.  At one, a psychologist was sitting beside me and was editing reports with his computer on his lap.  His screen was fully visible. I could see everything he was doing including client names, claim or personal identifiers, and the written account of each individuals’ psychological assessment.  Of course, I had no business reading the material so I glanced away, but had I been interested, I could have clearly obtained information that was not meant for me, and information that a client did not consent for me to have.  In another conference example, a professional was sitting in front of me at another table.  She too was working on her laptop and I was able to see, even one table over, what she was doing.  She was not writing reports, but I did see her managing some personal financial material which I am sure she didn’t realize was visible.  As a close colleague, I reminded her at the break to be careful with her computer and what she was working on.

I am also often on the GO train venturing in and out of Toronto.  That is a hotbed of people working while they commute – on both their phones and their computers.  In my interest about this topic of privacy, I have noticed that some people have found ways to protect the privacy of their devices.  With some help from a trusted techy-friend, I wanted to provide some of these strategies to you, in case you are using your computer or phone to manage confidential or private information in public places:

APPS

On Andriod devices (sorry iPhone users) there are applications (apps) you can download that will put a filter on your device that allows you to only see the screen head-on, leaving those at different angles unable to clearly see your information.  Some of these helpful apps are:

EXTERNAL PRODUCTS

Products exist to put over computer monitors, laptop screens and phones that will distort the view from different angles.  For example, take a look at the complete line of privacy screen protectors from 3M.  3M offers an entire line of screen protectors that work on multiple devices and offer varying levels of protection.

The big picture is that the protection of privacy is everyone’s business, but this is especially true in health care.  Taking steps to conceal devices and screens is just as important as storing other confidential information properly.  The more portable our work-life becomes the more we need to safeguard the information we possess.

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What’s Your Love Language… And Why Does it Matter?

Julie Entwistle, MBA, BHSc (OT), BSc (Health / Gerontology)

I have a few online Goddesses I follow.  Women entrepreneurs who have built an empire educating other women on how to be successful.  Much like my own blog, they are comfortable sharing their stories of success and failure and want others to benefit from the knowledge they have.

In watching my online videos I will occasionally stumble upon a gem.  A piece of knowledge, a book to read, a way of thinking, or an exercise that truly moves me forward.  I recently had one of those experiences.

The video, by my career-crush and woman with the best hair in the world Marie Forleo (www.marieforleo.com), was on ways to appreciate and be appreciated.  Be it your spouse, children, parents or colleagues at work, we all strive to be loved and appreciated by those that matter to us, and to demonstrate this in return.  Marie was suggesting that in work and life it is helpful to understand how people experience and interpret love and appreciation so the efforts you make towards them can truly have an impact.  While a bit unorthodox, her suggestion was to engage people in the test of their Love Language.  She mentioned that this really helped her and her team know how to work together and ultimately appreciate each other best.  So, I took the test.  And my husband took the test.  And my children.  And my team.  The results were fascinating and helpful.

In my own family, our languages are different.  Personally, I appreciate it most when people take things off my plate.  My mind is a web of things to do so one less thing to think about is hugely valuable and appreciated by me.  Be it “I grabbed the kitty litter, put that envelope in the mail, or will send that email” – it resonates and helps me feel loved.  And call me cold, but I don’t resonate with physical touch (recall MC Hammer “Can’t Touch This”).

My girls are all different.  While most of them ranked “quality time” as their # 1, some prefer “words of affirmation” and one “physical touch”.  Not surprising, my physical touch kid is the one that is always asking for hugs and snuggling up to me on the couch.  Of great interest to me was that the one whose highest score was “words of affirmation” is also the kid that has a really hard time with conversations about things she did wrong or ways she let us down.  That makes sense now as people with this love language “thrive on hearing kind and encouraging words” and can be “shattered by insults”.  While we would never intentionally insult her, indicating that her school work is sloppy will make her feel unloved.  Good to know.  After we took the test and talked about it as a family, I took all of our ratings and put these in a chart by the door where we come and go.  I wanted these to be in plain sight and a regular reminder that our Love Languages are different and this matters when we want or need to be loved and appreciated by one another.  In a chaotic family of 6, this understanding is essential.

So I then took this experience a step further.  I asked the very important women I work with to also take this test.  The results again were interesting.  While my business partner and I tend to use small gifts as a way to show them appreciation, none of them ranked this as important.  Most would rather have unsolicited compliments (“words of affirmation”) then a surprise Edible Arrangement.  Some also prefer “acts of service” or being given “quality time” to feel valued.  At work, we can easily implement appreciation actions by offering to help them complete a burdensome task, providing unsolicited compliments, or making sure they have our undivided attention when they need it.

I consider the masterpiece that is myself to be always “under construction” and as such, I am repeatedly interested in ways to be better, do better, and spread love.  Love does not need to be considered romantic and according to 5 Love Languages, can be cast over all we meet with through simple gestures, kind words, a pat on the back, a small token of appreciation, or by sparing some time from a packed schedule.  Take the test here and see how you interpret love and appreciation and share that knowledge with those around you.

 

Originally posted July 2015