With winter well upon us, your employees should take care of their health now more than ever. The simple fact is that sickness happens during the cooler months and given the populated nature of workplaces, it can often spread easily through your staff.
This can cause havoc on your productivity and general business wellbeing, leading to dips in concentration, distracting noises - such as coughs and sniffles - and an overall drop in morale. As an employer, you should know that the best way to work with this is to promote a culture of staying home and getting better.
While this may seem like a hard loss to bear - especially if your staff are off for extended periods at a time - the benefits outweigh the complications caused in the short term. For example, making your employees feel valued means giving them the space to look after themselves and get better in their own time.
Otherwise you run the risk of alienating and pushing them away, either into a lower level of productivity or resignation. The great thing about a lot of new small business software is that it can often be accessed remotely. Therefore, if your staff are feeling up to it, they can even work from the comfort of their own home while recovering.
Promote prevention
Of course, in a perfect world people wouldn't get sick at all. The next best thing you can do as an employer is to promote an environment of prevention. Have cleaning products on hand for people to use, such as baby wipes to clean equipment like desks and keyboards, and encourage your staff to eat healthy. You could also spur them on to take supplements to preempt the onset of colds and flus.