Workplace costs from illness or injury
Illness and injuries cost more than just medical bills. Costs to employee, employer, family and social life too. The costs of lost productivity, errors, loss of quality of work, goods or services, management interventions, co-worker or employer dissatisfaction, etc. results in billions of dollars every year!
Let’s take some common scenarios. Our first example employee has a headache. He can’t focus. He has to read and reread something he’s working on, multiple times and either “just” loses time, or has to go to another employee for clarification. Now that employee has to stop his job to help. Where this may have only taken five minutes when he is headache-free, now he wastes 25 minutes of his time and another five of the co-workers. Who pays for this? The company just paid a half hour salary for no work done. Multiply that by more than just one of these events that day, other days as well, other employees who also have a headache, and those numbers add up.
Our second example employee is sick with bronchitis. Not only will she not get paid for the 3-5 days (or more) that she’s not working, but her co-workers now have to take on her job in addition to their own. Well, we can all do only so much, so quality inherently goes down. Some things get shoved on the bottom of the stack. The co-worker is now stressed (may get a headache as a result!), and productivity suffers. Who pays for that?
The third example employee is just plain exhausted. She has been fatigued for quite some time now and work has been suffering for so long, that it is now her new norm. Instead of the 100 percent she used to give, she ekes out 80 percent. Because her energy has been deteriorating slowly over time, maybe no one notices, but the quality suffers nonetheless. Because she is so tired, she gets “touchy” when asked to do something. Maybe she snaps a snide remark, or gets angry (which is a distraction to work) and refuses to handle the request. As a result, work quality is down (or has to be handled by someone else), she may have to take some time to repair the emotional damage caused to someone else, and over time may lose her job. Who pays for all these distractions to productivity?
Someone who doesn’t feel well can diminish company morale, have an inability to concentrate, lack stamina, have a difficult time handling pressures and tasks, especially multiple tasks, have a difficult time handling corrections or negative feedback, struggles to respond to change, have trouble interacting with others, complains, and more. The cost to employee and employer, can really mount. This doesn’t even touch the effects that medications have!
The bottom line: employers and employees — it is in your best interest to seek out healthy remedies to handle employee health concerns. Acupuncture is an effective way to remedy many, many health challenges from acute or chronic illnesses to nearly every type of injury out there! To handle them without worrying about the side effects of medications is icing on the cake!
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Holly Carling is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist, Doctor of Naturopathy, Clinical Nutritionist and Master Herbologist with nearly four decades of experience. She is currently accepting new patients and offers natural health care services and whole food nutritional supplements in her Coeur d’Alene clinic. Visit www.vitalhealthcda.com to learn more about her, view a list of upcoming health classes and read other informative articles. Carling can be reached at (208) 765-1994 and would be happy to answer any questions regarding this topic.