“I have work from home,” - a dream come true for most employees and is rapidly shifting its paradigm to become a bane over boon. The internet is currently flooded with diverse areas that profoundly find us the platter of boons. They utter around the natives of the benefits to an extent but the banes are yet to dilute the pros list. Based on a recent survey, 88% of workaholics have been taking the note, "I-need-to-get-back-to- work" and pinning it to their professional to-dos.

De-digressing, have you ever wondered if your employees are staying healthy while working from home? With the current situation around the periphery of the world, work from home has become the standard norm for all organizations be it applauded private or the dignified public corporate sector. But apart from work, proper attention should be paid to the number one factor that makes everything else possible – the health.

Though common understanding states that gym membership, devoted time to working out, eating healthy and getting enough sleep is the golden path to being fit, we debate that there are easier, less time consuming and more wallet-friendly ways to achieve the same result.

We all know that drinking a minimum of eight glasses of water is necessary throughout a day. But, to what extent do we follow this saying?

With work being the priority for the majority of the day, most workers forget that they need to keep themselves hydrated. “The more fluids in your body, the healthier your internal systems are”. The proper intake of water and other fluids helps the body in preventing several diseases, but most of all it prevents the body from getting dehydrated.

Ask your employees to keep a water bottle next to their work desk. In between meetings and intense work sessions, remind them to stay hydrated. Drinking water from time to time is the easiest way to improve your health.

“You are what you eat”, a famous English proverb which roughly translates to – “to be fit and healthy you need to eat good food”. Following the proverb, when it comes to eating healthy, moderation is key.

When working from home, munching on a snack or eating irregular meals from time to time becomes an unconscious habit that may lead to health problems in the future. Keeping control of what is being eaten, improving the quality of food, and controlling meal portions can all help in leading a fit and healthy lifestyle.

Working constantly for long hours, be it at home or in a corporate setup, is tiring and exhausting for the body and the mind. For leading a healthy lifestyle, experts around the world have advised employees to take breaks in the middle of their work to relax. While most employees and employers may argue that taking a break in the middle of work can affect the flow with which they were working, taking a break has actually proven to be beneficial and productive.

Taking frequent breaks from work, resting your body and your eyes by focusing on other non-labouring tasks can prove to be a very healthy habit.

Most people around the world need to apply a conscious effort in order to sit in a good posture for a long period of time. Evolution has become such that most office workers slouch for long continuous hours altogether and do not realize it. Good posture is a part of the several modern problems faced by the common man.

Good posture can help tackle muscle weakness, pain, and fatigue. On the contrary, bad posture can lead to stress on the muscles, joints, and ligaments. Those who are used to sitting for long hours at a time often complain about neck and shoulder pains that are a direct result of having bad posture.

Convey the importance of posture and its repercussions to your employees. Tell them that investing in a good work chair, supporting their backs with cushions and other comfort items, and not stressing any joint or muscle while working is the key to work for long hours effortlessly. Most importantly, highlight the link between good posture and bodily pains.

Office workers are quite familiar with the word “stress”. The act of juggling several roles and responsibilities altogether throughout a day, meeting deadlines, coordinating with several people, etc, can be exhausting. Work inevitably leads people into stress from time to time that can affect them on a personal level. Stress is known as a “Silent Killer” for the working class and is one of the main causes of serious health problems in today’s society.

Everyone has their own way when it comes to tackling stress. Most corporates train their employees in ways to manage stress, the methods for being more productive and ways in which they can lead a stress-free life.

Physical exercise especially has proven to be one of the greatest stress remedies of today. Exercising helps to activate the feel-good neurotransmitters in your brain, known as endorphins. Exercising for a given time diverts all attention from the stress that you were once facing. Above all, exercising helps to lift your mood. A person who exercises regularly has better sleep, better confidence, less stress, and better mental health than those who do not.

According to reports, WHO recommends the following for Adults aged 18-64 Should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity throughout the week, or do at least 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity throughout the week, or an equivalent combination of moderate- and vigorous-intensity activity. For additional health benefits, adults should increase their moderate-intensity physical activity to 300 minutes per week, or equivalent. Muscle-strengthening activities should be done involving major muscle groups on 2 or more days a week.

Be it at work or at home, a clean workspace is a feel-good factor and can help boost anyone’s enthusiasm for the tasks that are up ahead. A workspace where everything is kept in order is a matter of pride for most people.

Cleaning your workspace regularly, either before or after work can affect employees in several ways. The look or feel of one’s workspace can become the deciding factor of whether they are leading a healthy lifestyle or not.

Time management is one of the most important skills that nearly all office-workers need to have in the corporate world. Time management is the skill to divide and conquer a set number of tasks according to their priority. Office workers mostly follow a strict schedule where they must complete their daily tasks within their working time of 8-10 hours.

When it comes to working from home, the boundary of time that once bound all office workers gets blurred. The 8-10 hour time restriction that was once there, no longer exists. As such, most office workers do not follow a definite schedule while working, i.e. they do not have a definitive “office time” and “personal time” chalked out for them.

In this case, having a schedule can be the key to properly understanding how someone’s day-to-day activities are divided. Overall a schedule can help in leading a balanced lifestyle while at home.

Hygiene is a personal choice and it does not take much effort. Wearing clean clothes every day, having proper meals, getting ample amounts of sleep are basic hygienic factors that contribute towards one’s health. Remembering the basic principles of hygiene and following them at work, leads to a healthier lifestyle.

All company employees across all sectors are quite familiar with the word “overwork”. Simply put, an overworked person is someone who has been working their body and mind continuously with hardly any breaks in the middle in order to complete the task at hand. Overworking is no doubt, bad for the health of a person.

The human body, especially the eyes require an ample amount of rest. Staring at a screen all day, sitting in one position all day, and working continuously, as mentioned above can lead to severe health problems. Even as much as getting up from one’s seat and moving around the room for a couple of minutes can be considered to be a type of rest. All workers should be reminded to not overexert themselves and to give their bodies enough time to rest and rejuvenate itself by sleeping for 7-8 hours a day. Here more information on Sleep by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

MyBenefits360 is a fully integrated, flexible benefits SaaS platform for employee engagement, wellness, fitness and benefits administration. We make it easy for employees to enroll in benefits, excite them with savings on wellness services and engage with fitness gamification. With built in analytics and AI powered dashboards, we simplify your benefits administration process, reduce risk and save costs. Whether you have 10 employees or 10,000, with our SaaS platform, we guarantee to onboard your organization in less than one hour, no matter how complex the underwriting.