Business
Quality Business
Keep Your
Team Healthy
By Tom Raffio
D
uring my more than thirty
years in the business
industry, I have learned,
through experience and
benchmarking best practice
companies, what it takes to run not
only a business, but a successful
one. What follows is the third
article in a series of twelve that
will position any business for
success.
In my last column I discussed how to
develop your employees’ skills.
While you are developing
your team’s professional
skills, you need to help
them remain mentally and
physically strong, too. At
Northeast Delta Dental we are
fortunate to have won many awards
for best practices for keeping
employees happy, healthy, fit, and
productive. In fact, just last year
we received the When Work Works
award from the Society for Human
Resource Management and Families
and Work Institute for our flexible
workplace initiatives.
A healthy team is a high-performing
team. If your employees feel good
about themselves and their work/
life balance, they will be more
successful as they will not worry as
much while at work. I cannot
recommend instituting flexible work
schedules and work-from-home
opportunities enough; however, it
may not work for certain
employees. For example, most of
our claims are now paperless but we
do receive a few paper claims in the
mail, thus, our mailroom staff does
their job best at the office. If you
have employees who focus heavily
on writing such as annual reports,
newsletters, etc., I have found that
these employees often write better
at home without the distractions of
the office. Another way to help
your employees balance their lives
is to offer flexible work schedules,
we allow employees to work a
normal work-week in four days
instead of five. This flexibility helps
employees be successful at
work and at home.
Many employees have passions
outside of work volunte W&