Although summer can provide many benefits for lots of businesses, it’s important to maintain your team’s morale and productivity, and make sure that your office environment adapts to the season. As an employer, there are many things that you can do in and around the workplace to support your team through the warmer months to keep morale levels on top form. Let’s take a look at the ways you can keep your team healthy and happy this summer for a real push in productivity and morale.
What your team wear
The effects that uniform has on your team’s morale during the summer months are quite vast. When warm weather comes around, it’s important that your team don’t feel uncomfortable. However, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and shorts instead of your usual suit-and-tie outfit won’t have your staff looking like part of your organisation. A more pared-back approach can be highly beneficial and will help your team feel a whole lot more comfortable, a vital step in ensuring morale continues to run high through the hotter months.
It’s a classic: lightly-coloured clothing doesn’t absorb the sun as much as darker tones do. So, encourage your team to put the navy shirt down and pick up a white one. With your team feeling comfortable, they’ll be ready to stay more focused on the task in hand for stronger team morale through the peak of summer.
This consideration is equally as important if your teams wear heavy-duty workwear and PPE. As an employer, you need to make sure that your team has access to weather-appropriate workwear, for safer and more secure working conditions throughout the summer. If your team can access the right tools for the job, the more efficient they will be, keeping morale pushing on.
Staying hydrated
If your team are working in warm office conditions or under the midday sun, you need to ensure that your team get all the hydration they need to stay healthy. It’s vital to ensure that your team have access to cold, fresh water all year round, especially during the summer months if you’re looking to keep morale high.
You should provide cold bottled water or cups and glasses to make sure that your workers can top up their hydration all through the warmer months. Whether your team are doing manual or desk work, making sure they take regular breaks is vital. Set a good example for your team by drinking plenty of water whilst avoiding sugary drinks and energy drinks wherever possible, as they speed up the dehydration process. You should also encourage your staff to check that they’re drinking enough throughout the day to stay safe from the summer heat. Regular breaks and drinking plenty will allow your team to feel that they’re performing at their best both physically and mentally to keep team morale ticking over.
Keeping things cool
As the best way to keep your team’s morale at an all-time high through the summer, it’s essential that your team can enjoy fresh air and movement to keep them feeling cool and comfortable. However, this isn’t always possible for some workplaces. Old buildings, budgets and many other factors can impact your ability to keep your office cool, but there are still plenty of options to keep morale high. Just as you would ensure that heating is in place in the colder months, the same goes for air conditioning and ventilation during the summer months. Ensuring that you use air conditioning units in the office wherever they’re available, and electric fans where they’re not will help you to circulate the air better as your employees work in the heat. The same goes if your team is out and about in a business vehicle; you should make sure that the air con in your team’s vehicles is regularly regassed, especially during the summer. The more comfortable you can keep your team as they handle your operations, the more they’ll feel taken care of and considered, letting morale continue at a healthy level.
Building on this approach, the best way to avoid your team’s morale dropping is to consider their working environment from all angles. For those teams that work in manual roles, you should ensure that workers should wear hard hats with sun protection and have cooling cloths that can be soaked with cool water, both of which lower body temperature and defend against heat illness. The more comfortable and safe you can keep your team, the bigger the return in morale will be.
At Protectus, we’re here to support you in making sure that your team are happy and healthy so that morale can improve. Whether it’s company health insurance or keyman insurance, we navigate a whole host of policies to find the most suitable cover for the benefit of your team’s health and your business operations. Get in touch for dedicated advice that will take care of you and your workforce. https://www.protectushealthcare.com/
