Relieving Employee Dehydration in the Workplace

by Spectrum Wellness

A highly quoted study conducted on a group of workers in a controlled environment revealed that dehydration to the extent of 1% led to a 12% decrease in productivity. (1) Although this study was conducted in the context of manual labour, another test indicated that whether a person was walking for 40 minutes or sitting at rest, the effects of mild dehydration were the same. (2) An employee sitting at the computer all day requires regular hydration just as much as a marathon runner. Dehydration can lead to tiredness, headaches and difficulty with mental tasks. The realisation that waiting to be thirsty might be too late, calls for proactive efforts to keep ourselves hydrated. However, when you have a busy day, it’s easy to forget to grab that cup of water.
As an employer, you might look at these facts as reasons for you to help your employees regularly hydrate themselves and effectively boost their productivity levels. So, how can you help?

1 Easy to Access

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Simple but important – easy to see and easy to get. Look around your workplace. You might have enough water dispensers around but are they in the right places? The easier to access it, the less your employees will mind getting up from their desk to grab a cup of water. It also helps if the dispensers are in places that easily fall in the line of sight of your employees, helping to remind themselves to stay hydrated. Sometimes all it takes is a little readjustment around your workplace to boost productivity.
When you think about hydration, the first thing that comes to mind is water. However, 20% of our daily intake of water comes from fruit and vegetable we eat. A convenient bowl of fruit in the office could be part of the solution you want to implement.

2Talk About the Why

Your employees already know water is important. However, for some, that basic knowledge may not necessarily lead to action. So, sometimes educative discussions including facts and tips that go further into the importance of keeping hydrated can help a lot. Maybe you could hold a brief session in the office to communicate with your employees. If the facts above did something to stir your concern, it might have the same effect with your employees.
The effort you put into reminding or educating your employees will communicate the gravity of the topic you are trying discuss. Your aim in this step is to give them the right information in the right way so that they absorb it. If your communication is effective, it will do the rest of the work for you.

3 Reminders

So, you have the water dispensers, the fruit bowl, set them in the right spots and you just had a session in the canteen to talk about why hydration is crucial to your employees’ physical and mental health within and outside the workplace. However, there’s a finishing touch missing that could seal the deal- reminders. It could be electronic messages, posters around the office or even verbal reminders. Clear, eye catching reminders that help your employees recall the importance of hydrating themselves. You might be able to assign an employee team to take on the responsibility of doing this.
 
At the end of the day, hydration in the workplace is extremely crucial to the health of your employees. They spend a big portion of their day in the office, and usually it’s a busy day, every day. This means it’s important that they don’t forget to regularly have that cup of water. Make sure your water dispensers are regularly refilled and there’s no empty dispenser at any point in time.

The effort you put into improving this situation will eventually pay off in the form of lower employee absenteeism, improved productivity and an overall positive atmosphere in the office.

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