If your employees called in sick less often, would that benefit you? What if they had more energy, especially in the last few hours of the workday? If your salespeople had more pep on their evenings to work late on the sales floor, would you be happier with them? And if your people generally felt better, and were less cranky, would that cut down on staff conflict?
Don’t Overlook the Benefits of Health Programs at Work
Better morale is a result you can expect from having good health programs in place at your dealership. Most health programs are group activities, and that is a form of team building. The activity could be as simple as hosting a weekly Weightwatchers™ meeting on site. Chances are good that many of your employees are current members of a weight loss program, and would prefer to attend their weekly meetings during a lunchtime at work.
How about having a yoga or stretching class three times a week in your big meeting room? Just think about all the complaining you hear about sore backs and stiff necks, both hazards of sitting at a desk all day long. It might not even be necessary to hire an outside instructor to run the simple classes. One of your staffers might already be a certified instructor.
Look at the Hard Numbers Too
If your employees were healthier, would they make fewer claims on their health insurance, and would that lower your premium costs? Of course, it would. On that note, having a tobacco cessation class running would really be helpful. Ask your insurer if they offer help running a class that helps people stop smoking.
Productivity, too, is always better when everybody shows up for work and feels good.
Society Has Changed – Workers Want More From their Employer Than Just Money
The automotive industry runs on incentives, commission plans, spiffs and bonuses. All that is supposed to motivate people, but as you know from experience, employee turnover is extremely high despite those ‘incentives.’ Monetary rewards alone are not enough to get the best effort from your people. Money does not make people drive themselves toward excellence.
What Motivates People?
If you read our article on finding your employees’ hidden motivations (you can read it here: https://www.cbtnews.com/real-way-improve-dealerships-culture/), you know that everybody wants to feel a sense of community at work. One easy way to help them achieve that is to offer fun, helpful group activities, things that help them achieve a common goal like weight loss, exercise or better diet.
Meditation classes are very popular these days, and require nothing more than an instructor and a quiet room for 30 minutes.
Quick Tips
Do you run breakfast meetings? Instead of pastries and sugar-rich foods try serving fruit, whole wheat toast and the like. What about putting healthier snacks in your vending machines?
Lead from the top. Don’t force this on people, but survey them to see what activities they would like. Then be an equal participant with them.
