Mind Body Connection: Improve Productivity With a Healthy Work Force
When I was young I showed an interest in science and medicine. My Mom wanted me to become a doctor and find a cure for some horrible disease. But during my high school career exploration session I found it really wasn’t for me. But business sure was fun! I never lost my interest in medicine and often look outside the business world for solutions to problems. So I read all kinds of material and a sizeable amount deals with health. The more I read the more I’m convinced my theories on work and health are right. In this article, I’ll share a few ideas about how to improve productivity by keeping your work force healthy.
We are always told to keep active, eat healthy, stay fit. Recently I read that 70 percent of American women lead a low activity lifestyle, that means they do workout, just not regularly and often. I’m sure the figure is probably the same for the guys but I wasn’t able to find it. 60 percent of American are overweight and live a less than active lifestyle. Most of us are aware of the health problems related to this.
I remember every job I had, there was always snack food in the office or at meetings. Even at Thunderbird we gave snacks and drinks to executives in the classroom. Food was always in reach. At work we usually had bagels and donuts around, and when the 10:30am hunger hit, you could almost hear those bagels and donuts calling out to be eaten. Sitting at a desk all day doesn’t help either, even when I was going to the gym every other day for an hour and half, half of which was spent waiting to use equipment.
It is said billions are lost in productivity due to illnesses every year. Illnesses that we shouldn’t have, illness we create because we are not working productively. This is the theme song of every corporate reorganization, “let’s improve productivity!” I say yes, but I don’t say do it by working longer, hard or with less people (in some cases), do it smarter and there are some proven ways to do it that are little used.
Sick Days
Every winter it hits us, the flu and cold season. Someone’s kid gets it at school and they bring it to work. Then half the office is sick. People are at work, they are working but are they productive? A German study decided to answer that question. They studied a number of companies which had this problem of people catching colds and bringing them to work. They used the same people, in the same setting over a period of time. At first when someone got sick, they told them to take some medicine and work unless a doctor said otherwise. Later when someone showed signs of being sick and a doctor confirmed, they sent that person home until they were better and could not infect the other workers. They found that the second group was more productive and had less sick leave than the first.
Most managers I know would tell the person to work, even if sick, after all it’s just a little cold. But the study showed that it was better to make them go home. That worker wasn’t productive but the others were healthy and stayed productive. Where as, when they were all sick, they worked, but at a slower rate.
Get Physical
Our bodies were meant to move around and be fit. We are at our best when in shape and moving. When we are fit and in shape our immune system fights off colds and other illness better and we get sick less. So why are you bring donuts to work? Why are there soda machines everywhere? Why are there snack machines filled with candy all over the office building? You put it there, people are going to eat it, that’s how things work! As a manager you want productive healthy people, as an employee, you want to be productive so you get paid more. Having unhealthy snacks in the office hurts everyone. Yes a nice chocolate helps on those stress days, I do it to, but a handful of pecans can do the same and they are healthier too.
Add to this, the way most companies are set up, is really a huge productivity killer. We go to work, sit in an office or cubical and stare at a computer screen all day. I went in for this interview and I was almost scared out of my suit. When you really look at it, it is scary. You sit there and just type and very few companies I have been to encourage movement. If you get up to use the restroom someone looks at you like the bathroom trip Gestapo. So people sit and work. When I was an analyst I had to go through reports, some days I would sit all day and do nothing but type. At the end of the day, my eyes were seeing computer screens everywhere. Later when I was in start ups and guys from the corporate world came to work with us, I had to deprogram them. They were so used to sitting in a cubical they didn’t know what else to do.
It is said that we should get up and move around for 10 minutes out of every 90 minutes as a minimum. I personally find a 30 minute walk does wonders for solving an idea. Something about getting the blood moving gets the creative juices moving too. Some of my best ideas came while on the tread mill or on a walk. I know this idea works from personal experience. As well, I remember teams I ran as far back as high school. The active ones always seemed to be the productive ones.
While working as the IT manager at a dotcom, I had the chance to start from scratch. Instead of cubicles, the programmers and developers had a big open space, no walls to separate anyone. They also had to move around. This actually seemed to help as people were not frozen in their little space they had to move to each other to deal with each other and could see each other. Which leads to the next point.
Interact or perish
As the Exec. Ed. Chair at Thunderbird, I was always interacting with people. It’s what made the job dynamic. Except when I was taking a nap or in a high power meeting, I kept my office door open, as a way to invite people in. I had a soft couch for people to sit on and an extra desk in case they needed one and few nice drinks to appeal to anyone’s taste. In my first semester I went out and networked with people, soon they came to me and my office was in a very active building so it was easy to meet people. Can’t say the same when I was the cubical prairie.
I remember working in a cubical and feeling cut off from everyone else, even though a thin piece of whatever, separated me from a half dozen people, it still felt lonely. I would stick my head up like a prairie dog every now and then to see if there was life, only to see a few heads bobbing on the sides of the prairie. Life in the cubical prairie is not fun. Especially when your boss is screaming to get to work and you just want to be able to say hello to another person because you feel you are spending more quality time with your computer than anyone else. Even hermits need some human interaction.
Recently a friend of mine was mad as can be. One of the directors at her company had banned the use of instant messaging programs and was trying to ban personal calls. This at a company where it is common for people to work until 10pm. For some, IM was their contact with the outside world, not much is open after 10pm on a Tuesday night! Stuck in a cubical, this was a way to interact with other people, something that is needed and helps keep people happy. There are numerous studies that show human interaction is helpful and keeps people happy and boost the immune system. So why are we again killing our productivity by isolating people off in little boxes?
Let people move around and interact. Xerox park is one of the most recognized innovation centers in the world. Some of the biggest ideas to change the world have come from this one place. Back in the 60’s and 70’s when the big ideas that are common place today, were invented. They used to sit around in groups on bean bags talking and interacting. Yeah, that’s right, ideas that allow you to read this article were invented by a bunch of guys sitting on bean bags drinking coffee and talking! No one is going to claim the GUI system or some of the first computer peripherals are silly inventions, our modern business worked would stop working without these inventions. So why isolate people, let them talk, move around. Your goal is increased productivity, not running a day care center for adults. Let them move around and be productive.
I used to run little brainstorming meetings, we would have drinks from around the world and try out new drinks. Selling cultural experiences was only part of what we did, but this was a great way to help people communicate and brainstorm new ideas. The ideas that came from these session were some of the wildest ideas, but they also were the most influential ideas that made the biggest positive impact. If you had walked by you probably would have thought we were being unproductive comparing a drink from Canada with that from China, but really it was how ideas got started.
Conclusion
There is so much that can be said for the way we physically interact at work. So much can be changed. The way we normally do things is out of date and actually anti-productive. New norms need to be put in place that are more in balance with our natural rhythm. This may sound all new age but it’s not. It is just common sense. Work with the body and mind and you get better results with fewer costs. Work against it and your benefits are only short term and the hidden costs of higher taxes to pay for illness, will increase was looking for.
