February’s coming soon, and it also happens to be the most popular month for employees to call in sick.

Winter in general wreaks havoc on your employees’ health. And you can expect the most difficulty to come in February.

What can you do to help your employees maintain their health, even amidst the difficulty winter brings?

Here’s some ideas:

1. Create a Healthy Office Cookbook

Everyone loves to try new foods. And eating healthy doesn’t mean you have to choke down new food that you can barely stand (like raw brussels sprouts).

Eating healthy can be fun…and delicious. Create an office cookbook and have your employees share their favorite healthy recipes.

Or, if they don’t have their own, challenge them to find recipes that look interesting online.

You could also augment this a little with an occasional catered meal.

2. Get Your Employees Outside

Yes. You read that right. Get your employees outside…even in the cooler winter temperatures.

Why the emphasis on the outdoors?

Because people exercise longer when outside. Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park has plenty of group exercise activities going on outdoors during the winter.

While employees may not be overly enthused, you can offer small incentives like gift cards (or just ask your employees what would motivate them) to get them to engage in outdoor exercise.

3. Make Wellness A Part of Your Daily Business

Most companies turn wellness into an event. For example, they frequently take the form of weight-loss competitions or a quarterly steps competition.

That’s helpful. But, what do your employees do when the competition ends? Do they go right back to their old, unhealthy ways?

The smartest, most successful companies integrate wellness right into their daily business activities. For example, giving an employee the option of a standing desk.

There’s about a million ways you can make this happen. Ask your employees to help you come up with ideas.

4. Hold a Health Fair

You may or may not have the time to do this. Alternatively, you could just invite vendors in to your company to talk to your employees, as it works for your company.

These local vendors then discuss their own approach to making your workplace healthier.

If you’re feeling ambitious and want to host the actual fair, here’s a guide on how to make it happen.

The important thing through all of these tips is to include your employees in the process of making each decision. That way, they end up with better health using mechanisms they find most valuable, which maximizes engagement.

Which methods sound most appealing to you?