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Water in any business environment is essential
for the health and well-being of the workforce and it is in the interest of all business owners to ensure that a plentiful
supply of good quality, clean fresh water is available.
In the 21st century, the commercial
world is much more in touch with the welfare of the people who work for them.
Health in the workplace
takes precedent these days as bosses are rapidly adopting the understanding of what creates a healthy workforce.
Office refurbishment includes the use of efficient air conditioning, specialist lighting, open plan offices to create the
right atmosphere and office water coolers to ensure constant hydration, leading to an alert and healthy staff.
Office
water coolers made their debut in the USA in the 1920's and 1930's with the building of skyscrapers.
Office blocks necessitated a way of getting clean fresh drinking water to the higher floors when water pipes simply could
not preform the task.
Prior to this, in 1906, the main source of clean drinking water came from drinking
fountains, developed by Halsey Willard Taylor and Luther Haws, in an attempt to reduce the incidence of illnesses from
water borne diseases such as typhoid.
Businesses recognise that providing a drinking water
solution such as water coolers, most of the problems associated with dehydration are alleviated quickly, revitalising a lagging
brain very quickly leading again to increased productivity.
Water is a vital nutrient for life, but in a
busy work environment it is easy to forget to drink it in order to stay hydrated.
However,
few workers forget to drink a caffeinnated beverage each day, 93% of them do so, believing it acts as a stimulant
to the nervous system thereby helping them to starve off fatigue.
Unfortunately, as caffeine acts as
a mild diuretic, this contributes to dehydration.
Dehydration is a problem receiving many headlines in recent years,
as the understanding of it's effects on the human body becomes better known.
It is known that a healthier
workforce leads to improved productivity and fewer working days lost to illness.
Good hydration contributes
to staff health and safety as even mild levels of dehydration can adversely affect both physical and mental performance
and alertness, increase tiredness and irritability, affect memory, concentration and response time.
As dehydration increases, safety is compromised with hand-eye co- ordination becoming more difficult, making jobs requiring
handling heavy machinery particularly dangerous.
The dehydrated condition is first indicated
by thirst, although it is thought that by then, the body's process of shutting down due to lack of water has already begun.
If thirst is not quenched, then a headache will generally follow, indicating that the brain is squeezing fluid
from it's tissues.
Other symptoms previously mentioned may follow. And the solution to this?... A short
stroll to the nearest office water cooler will quickly raise levels of alertness and dissipate headaches.
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