Do you know that an average employee loses about 11 workdays per year at the cost of $1,560 due to non-fatal injuries? Bites and stings account for an average of 1.5 days lost at the cost of $290. Motorcycle accidents account for nearly 44.1 days at the cost of $6,196.
Fortunately, occupational therapy can help your business get these employees back at work as soon as possible. Even better, this therapy works well with people across all age groups. It mainly focuses on employees who face challenges in physical and cognitive functions.
However, not every business owner understands the importance of occupational therapy. How does it relate relation to employee retention or workplace safety? What does it entail?
How does your team benefit? Will your employees achieve optimal health and physical capabilities at all times?
This article highlights the benefits of introducing occupational therapy to your employees. Read on to learn more.
1. Helping Your Employees Learn and Thrive
Employees experiencing mental difficulties require special support to perform their daily tasks. Occupational therapists know how to offer this support.
For instance, a professional with occupational therapy documentation software can develop learning programs for employees who struggle in an office environment. Moreover, every employee learns in a way that suits their needs and capabilities.
What’s more, employees will learn critical life-long skills to help them beyond the office environment. Someone who learns more becomes confident about what they do. In the long haul, you’ll build employee morale for enhanced productivity.
2. Increasing Independence at Work
When an employee returns to work after a long illness, everyone in the office worries about them. Will they fall off the staircase? How about slipping in the washrooms?
While this shows compassion, it can be very stressful on the injured employee’s side.
Introducing occupation therapy will help restore independence in such employees. This increases employee engagement across all levels because no one feels sorry about one another’s situation.
Even if it means learning some basic skills afresh from scratch, the therapist will ensure that employees enjoy every aspect of it.
3. Fostering Patience and Kindness
There is a high likelihood that every time you meet your employees you only discuss account books and customer satisfaction. While a business must keep running, it’s imperative to consider employer emotional wellbeing.
This is why you should introduce a new professional to your team, an occupational therapist. Occupational therapists know how to create an atmosphere that broods patience and kindness.
The main work of an occupational therapist involves offering compassionate support to patients. Introducing this kind of attitude to your workplace makes everyone feel accomplished. Patience and kindness will enhance employee engagement too.
4. Occupational Therapy Improves Memory Function
Do you have an older workforce? You don’t want to lose your most experienced talents due to memory impairment.
The good news is that occupational therapy can help enhance employee retention in this case. Although memory loss is prevalent, it shouldn’t be inevitable.
This therapy does more than just mitigate cognitive and physical challenges. Your workplace occupational therapist will introduce memory games and puzzles. This strengthens employee memory function.
However, note that occupational therapy may not address dementia. It only gives suggestions that enhance the employee’s quality of life, even beyond the office.
5. Building Strength and Endurance Among Employees
Anyone who comes out of a difficult situation emergence stronger. Going through a long-term sickness or injury helps build endurance.
However, this is not the case for everyone. The journey to recovery has to be smooth to achieve this.
As a business executive, you cannot oversee both employee performance and recovery. Introducing occupational therapy at work can help you with the latter. You’ll get surprised at how your team builds resilience to face their physical and mental insecurities.
6. Addressing Visual Deficits
Employees require good eye vision to perform their daily tasks. This includes fulfilling customer orders, drafting invoices, and organizing their calendar. Also, one of the key factors that determine an employee’s return to work protocol is better eye vision.
When your employees spend more time on the road, visual deficits can even pose a greater challenge. Occupational therapists can help address the visual deficits some of your employees’ face.
Introducing occupational therapy at work may entail color-coded labels. It will enhance better visibility around the office. Magnification tools can also make life easier for employees with diminished vision.
7. Knowing the Best Adaptive Equipment and Workplace Modifications
Onboarding employees to work after a long-term injury may require special adaptive equipment. You’ll also need modifications at the workplace.
An employee recovering from workplace injury may need modifications at the bathroom. This will enhance workplace safety.
Similarly, an employee recovering from eye issues may need special light modifications. Adaptive products and modification options can be pretty overwhelming in either case. Introducing occupational therapy can help you choose the right options for every situation.
Even better, an occupational therapist can do extensive workplace evaluation for potential hazards. You’ll also get professional advice on ramp and grab bar placements.
8. Emotional Support
Occupational therapy at a workplace can offer emotional support to boost employee morale. Every occupational therapist knows how to console ailing employees. It can be difficult to get back to work after a long battle with illness or severe injuries.
If employees feel like they don’t get the support they need, they can sink into depression. On the brighter side, occupational therapists care about employees and how. They help employees cope and adapt to the prevailing situation.
In other words, they focus on meeting the employee’s goals, not just the clinician-centric goals. At the end of the day, you end up with a motivated staff that’s ready to embrace their challenges and bring something good out of them.
Occupational Therapy Is for Everyone at Work
These are just a handful of benefits of introducing occupational therapy to your employees. In the real sense, it goes beyond addressing cognitive and physical difficulties. Most importantly, occupational therapy fosters workplace safety.
Read other articles on this site for more information on how occupational therapy enhances smart management at work.