After the excesses of the winter festive season, thoughts often turn to fitness and a new gym membership. Supporting your employees with a Salary Sacrifice Gym Membership scheme could boost their fitness and your business’s financial health.
Your employees are your biggest asset, and it pays to keep them in great shape. They may also be one of your most significant costs, so maximising their performance is key to a healthy return on investment.
Exercise increases overall fitness, but it also has specific benefits for your employees and will benefit your bottom line.
Exercise relieves stress and reduces absenteeism
Stress is a feature of modern life, and while stress can be motivating, too much can affect mental and physical health.
As a responsible employer, you take steps to relieve unnecessary stress in the workplace, but stress isn’t always work-related. The strain of family life, rising living costs, and the struggle of commuting can leave your employees frazzled.
However it is caused, chronic stress can be the underlying reason for a range of serious health problems, including high blood pressure, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, anxiety and depression.
Exercise works in several ways to reduce stress.
- Aerobic activity boosts the body’s feel-good hormones, endorphins, which lift the mood.
- Focusing on an activity, whether weightlifting or running on the treadmill, is a good way to stop stressing about other issues and break the cycles of negative thoughts prevalent in stressed individuals.
- Challenging the body with exercise also relieves muscle tension, making it easier for people to relax.
A regular gym workout could help your employees avoid stress-related illness. That’s great news for them, and your business reaps the benefits of improved fitness and reduced absenteeism.
A regular gym workout could make your employees cleverer!
Harvard University researchers have found that the thinking and memory centres are larger in people who exercise regularly than in those who are more sedentary.
Employees who commit to regular moderate gym workouts could find that their memory and general cognitive level improve after as little as six months.
Although all exercise has this effect, gym workouts that include a variety of cardio and strength training activities are excellent. Swapping and changing activities require learning and shifts in focus, which are excellent for improving brain plasticity, a marker of good health and cognition. In the long term, employees who exercise regularly could be 20% less likely to develop dementia.
Regular exercise also encourages relaxation and better sleep, which will make your employees feel refreshed and better able to deal with workplace challenges.
A gym membership develops muscle strength and boosts brain power, which is a win for you and your employees.
How does Enjoy Benefits Salary Sacrifice Gym Membership work?
Your employees can choose their gym and whichever gym membership package they want, including peak, off-peak, and family memberships.
Gym membership fees are paid by employees and deducted from their salary before National Insurance contributions. The scheme makes gym membership more affordable and saves you money on national insurance contributions.
You can read more about our Gym Membership scheme here.
About Us
At Enjoy Benefits, we have vast experience helping companies of all sizes introduce workplace benefits.
Our benefit schemes are easy to set up, and ongoing administration is then run through a simple-to-use hub. Employees manage their benefits through the hub, and the employer can see which benefits are proving most popular and what level of take-up each employee has had.
If you would like an obligation-free chat to discuss which benefits work best for your business and your employees, please call 0800 088 7315 or use our Contact Form.
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