Employers have a duty to provide their employees with an adequate supply of fresh and safe drinking water. Providing your employees with a water cooler implies they can stay hydrated throughout the day and work to the highest of their productivity levels. You may not realize but it could be a key differentiator between tired, unmotivated staff and enthusiastic, creative employees with increased levels of concentration.
Encouraging your team to stay hydrated is critical for a productive workforce. Here are the benefits of having a water cooler in your office.
1. Boosts Productivity
Several factors come into play when determining the productivity of an office. Dehydration is one of them as it prevents the brain from functioning properly, and thus interfering with concentration.
Studies in the past have shown workers with easy access to drinking water are 25% more productive and happy at work than those who do not stay hydrated at work.
Employees working in an office usually sit at their desks for an almost entire day without having to out any physical work. Office workers need to get away from the computer once in a while, otherwise, the pressure will build. Water cooler presents one way for employees to walk and stay productive.
2. Fosters Culture
Creating a relaxed and comfortable working environment is essential for the company’s growth and continued success. Happy employees deliver excellent results.
No matter what industry you’re in, maintaining employee relationships can make or break your business performance. Employees want workplaces where they can establish friendships and communicate openly. If they are not getting it at a workplace, chances are they will find it elsewhere.
Employers want to ensure they’re doing enough to encourage productivity. Water cooler chat is a great opportunity to take a well-deserved break from work and connect with colleagues on a personal level.
Discussing topics not related to work may seem to hinder productivity but these casual interactions are crucial to building trust and improving teamwork in the organization. When employees trust each other, they are not afraid to reach out for assistance.
3. Keeps Employees Healthy
Water is closely related to many health issues that can make employees sick. Needless to say, as sick leaves are unplanned, it places workload on other office staff and business productivity suffers. Even though water quality is regulated in most countries, the number of contaminants present in the tap water can vary.
One of the only ways to ensure protection from an unexpected increase in contaminants is to filter the water before consumption.
Most water coolers have some sort of filtration system in place that removes unwanted contaminants and improves the taste of drinking water. As a result, the employees are left with only clean and filtered water.
4. Reduces Business Expenses
Buying a water dispenser is an affordable way to quench the thirst of the office staff. Both the bottle-fed and mains fed types of water coolers are inexpensive and will help your business save a lot of money in the long run.
Compared to single-use plastic bottles, you can save money by buying large bottles for your dispenser. The bottles used to feed the cooler can be easily replaced and refilled and perfect for start-ups or businesses trying to operate on a limited budget.
With mains-fed water coolers, you’ll have a higher initial investment but lower ongoing costs. Over time, this kind of water cooler will pay for itself and eliminate the need to store bulky water bottles. Furthermore, staff time and effort can be better spent when an office does not have to waste time calculating bottles needed, putting in orders, and sorting out invoices.
To know more about mains-fed water coolers, click here.
5. Helps the Environment
Everyone wants to go green and do their best to save the environment, but where to start? Believe it or not, the answer is as simple as looking at the water you drink daily.
The many benefits of clean bottled water created a billion-dollar market segment, but unfortunately, the environmental damage of this newly created industry has gradually starting to be realized. Billions of single-use plastic bottles either end up filling the landfills or ocean beds where they take hundreds of years to decompose.
Water coolers not only eliminate these plastic bottles but also the amount of plastic that gets wasted in packaging. The best solutions favor a bottle-free approach in which your office can significantly reduce the ongoing contribution of plastic production to global pollution.
By switching to a mains-fed dispenser, your business also cuts down on deliveries saving millions of units of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
Summing Up
Employee wellness is worth the investment as it is directly related to business success. If you need a simple way to improve the wellbeing of your staff, installing a water cooler is a great start to ensure their health and productivity for years to come. They are an ideal solution to delivering clean and filtered water in an office environment.