Why Providing Employees With Great Water Is Necessary


Just like staff pledge to support and uphold a company’s organizational goals upon recruitment, it is in the duty of every organization to ensure the safety and welfare of their staffs.  Providing an unlimited source of potable water is one of these responsibilities and in this expository post, you will find out why providing your employee with great water is necessary.

Providing Water for Your Employees

Ensuring that your staff drinks healthy and safe water is one of the primary regulations of the occupational safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that all employers must keep to for optimum functionality of their staff strength.

While it is reasonable to believe that your region’s water is safe, pollutants in the form of halo acetic acids, bacteria, and lead might differ from state to state, according to the analysis made by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This means that you shouldn’t assume that the water your staffs are drinking is safe, it is best if you make an extra effort to confirm the status of the drinking water you provide for your staffs.

A research study from Harvard University shows that more than five million American might drink contaminated water every day. Common pollutants are poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) that end up into water bodies from the various industries across the country. These pollutants toxic substances known to cause abnormalities in the human body blood pressure, kidney, nervous system, and cancer, according to researchers from the Natural Resource Defense Council.

It is therefore pertinent that you adopt sufficient measures to ensure that your staffs and you are consuming clean water within the workplace.

Taking Responsibility For Your Worker’s Safety

It is one of your duties as an employer to have a good knowledge of the water you consume from your local supplier. Purity is a function of the source. Example of a credible provider is one that is controlled and managed by a local authority. The health standards and the affairs of these systems are regulated and monitored stringently by the EPA.

Ensure to check for the consumer confidence report (CCR) every first week of July with your area water supplier. The report shows you the contents of your water and its source. It furthermore helps you know if there are any pollutants found in your drinking water and if the level of contaminants exceeds the health and safety standards, your area’s water supplier should always notify you.

Then again, if you’re not well convinced by your local supplier, you can call the EPA’s safe drinking water helpline at 1-800-426-4791 for more information and find out about the safety and quality of your drinking water within your office.

Frequent checks on the purity and health standards for your office’s drinking water is vital and necessary to help avert legal consequences such as government sanctions or a weak force —resulting in staffs always falling sick. To inquire if your area’s water supply has elements of PFASs, you can reconsider checking with your district’s health department or a high standard laboratory for a water test twice or thrice every year depending on where your company’s location. If required, you can also invest in installing carbon filters within your office’s drinking water channel to help eradicate lead, chlorine, and other impurities.

Going an extra mile to safeguard the purity and health standard of your workplace’s drinking water, is a sign that as an employer, you cherish and value the well-being of your employees.

Irrespective of your business or organization, if you’re an employer in the United States, you are accountable for the safety and welfare of your staffs within the office environment. This also includes providing your employees with healthy and safe drinking water to ensure they stay hydrated throughout the day.

OSHA Drinking Water Standards- By the Books

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have put in place drinking water regulations and standards that help ensure staffs are provided with good, pure, and healthy drinking water as they work. Here comes the big question, “what are U.S drinking water regulations, and how can you ensure that your employees are drinking the best water every day?”

It is imperative for all U.S based organization (government and corporate) to adhere to OSHA drinking water standards, especially the General Duty Clause of the OSHA Act. The requirements stipulated by the United States Department of Labor mandates all employers to:

  • – Provide staffs with clean drinkable water in sufficient amounts to meet the health and personal needs of every person in your organization.
  • – Provide staffs with clean drinkable water and ensure it is for only staff health and personal needs, such as consumption and hygiene.
  • – Dispense drinking water from a fountain, a covered container with single-use bottles or single-use cups stored in a sanitary receptacle.
  • – Forbid staffs from sharing drinking cups, and water bottles.

As stated in the above regulations, it is compulsory companies to install a filtration system or filtered water dispenser, thus, providing your staffs with potable water from a credible local supplier is regarded as sanitary according to the U.S standards. Following OSHA’s recommendations, you can provide your employees with water from a hallway sink where staffs wash their dishes and rinse their hands.

Sticking just to the requirements and regulations of the OSHA is ideal, but as a good employer with really big organizational goals and the welfare of your employees at heart, you can go an extra mile by installing a water filtration system within your workplace.

Installing a filtration water system such as a filtered water dispenser can provide a definite solution to drinking healthy water within your work environment and help avoid government sanctions. A filtered water dispenser provides your staffs with healthy, fresh, and pollutants free water.  Potable water supplied by your local distributors is most likely to have a small percentage of contaminant, although in very minute quantities, but not 100% fit for a promising healthy workforce. Having a functional filtration system within your workplace helps you entirely remove contaminants, dispense sanitized water, and life-giving refreshment for effective and productive workflow.

Installing a Functional Water Filtration System in Your Workplace

The benefits of paying proper attention to your staff’s wellness are numerous and essential for running a successful business. It pays best when your employees are happy and healthy! Most researches have proven that staffs do better when they’re fit physically, psychologically, and socially.

Despite incorporating lots of welfare programs like flu shots, gym membership, and health insurance, you still need to take that extra step by installing a filtered countertop water dispenser in your workplace. Still wondering why here are some of the core benefits of providing your staffs with high purity, filtered water? Check out some amazing returns for having a good water outlet in your organization:

Increased Productivity

It has been long discovered and proven that there is a connection between dehydration and reduced cognition. Findings from the research conducted Mind Research Institute, and Weill Cornell Medical College’s Brain shows that even the slightest dehydration can lead to the dreaded afternoon slump of staff at the office.

The study reveals that loss as low as 3% can lead to reduced blood flow to the brain, which decreases cognitive performance, response time, and attentiveness. You can avoid dehydration by mounting a water dispenser in the office, offering your employees great taste, refreshing, and healthy water on demand, and all through their stay at work. Providing your staffs with an abundance of pure and wholesome water will keep their minds at work, and their bodies set to tackle any task.

Reduced Downtime

Ever heard that 35% of all gastrointestinal related illness is a result of inadequate water? When staffs demand work off days resulting from health complications, productivity reduces. Moreover, employees get stressed out from handling heavy workload that could result in sick breaks which are avoidable.

Using a functional water filtration system eliminates the chances of your staffs getting infected with gastrointestinal infirmities and reduced business productivity. Installing a well-filtered water dispenser provides your teams with 100% pure drinking water free from bacteria and any form of water contaminants, for a healthy and productive workflow.

Promotes Business-Staffs Relationship

Researches reveal that aside from health, staffs can benefit from a—office water cooler—chat. Everyone enjoys a short break to easy their brain and stress during the day; the quick chat employees engage in while they refill their water bottles, promotes staff’s relationship and fosters unity among teams.

The quick chats do not only boost your company’s productivity and morale, but it also helps improve your organizational culture by creating a causal face time with senior colleagues and supervisors, still presenting collaboration opportunities for staffs to work with colleagues from other departments.

The water refill breaks help employees socialize and create an ample time for colleagues to share their similarities like—hobbies, favorite foods, bars, and restaurants—which can also create in them a sense of belonging and camaraderie in the office.

The health and well being of staffs contribute significantly to the success and growth of your business, and also determines employee’s happiness and longevity. If you’re thinking of an easy way to secure the wellness of your employees, incorporating a water dispenser within your work environment can be a big step to enhancing staff work time productivity, health, and longtime partnership.

Dehydration and Office Productivity

Lots of researches have been conducted over the last few decades evaluating the effects of dehydration on both the human body and mind.  One constant discovery that continues to recur is the significance of frequent, regular drinking of water during the day.

These discoveries have revealed that drinking water regularly on a daily routine can positively impact on your cognition, mental performance and significantly contribute to your mood. It is obvious we often undervalue the importance of staying hydrated, particularly within the work environment where high cognitive performance is essential.

With all these known, providing you staffs with not just potable water but healthy drinking water becomes a great investment that will pay off in the long run. Statistics from 2004 Annual reports confirm that absenteeism due to health issues cost UK based employers a large sum of 168 million working days.

This evidence reveals that staying hydrated, known to be an immune system booster and also a good prevention measure for sicknesses like flu and cold, plays a vital role than ever in the workplace. Merely installing a filtered water cooler in your office can help increase employee’s productivity and efficiency.

All through the day, our bodies lose water in various ways—evaporation from the skin and lungs as we breathe, and sweat playing the significant role. Weather and climate factors too, contribute to the amount of water we lose during the day, it best if we learn the habit of drink water regularly as our bodies perform more effectively when we maintain a proper water balance.

Ultimately, drinking water regularly helps the body stay hydrated at all times and enables employees to stay focused and perform best.

Maintaining a healthy workforce is the primary key to high productivity. Ensuring that your staffs remain healthy in both mind and body can greatly pay off. When your employee’s health is intact, there is low malingering, reduced health costs, and a greater staff’s longevity. The easiest and most effective way of combating sickness and helping employees stay healthy is by providing them with great water supply while they’re at work in the office.

Five Productivity Reasons to Provide Great Water

1. Good Cognition and Mental Alertness

Frequent water intake helps our body remain hydrated which is necessary for improved cognition, memory, attentiveness, and high mental alertness.

2. Restored Energy

Continuous completion of the task after task can lead to staff’s fatigue.  When our body system is short of water, all the main body organs begin to suffer reduced functionality. When staffs get choked up and tired from work, it becomes difficult to concentrate and achieve results. A chilled bottle of refined, great tasting water from a filtered water dispenser can naturally boost energy and get your workers to Optimum Functionality.

3. Increased Staff Morale

Installing a filtered water system in workplace water channels tells staffs that their interest and well being is vital to your organization. Additional care like that matters a lot to staffs and gives them a sense of belonging and love which can be a big drive on the side of your worker.

4. Propels Efficiency and Productivity

Your company focuses more on achieving organizational thereby increasing workflow efficiency and productivity.

5. Averts Sugary Cravings

Eating junks —like chips, chocolates, biscuits, or a bottle of soda—to suppress hunger might, in the long run, lead to sweet craving among staffs which is not good. Replacing these sugar balls with a glass of water can help lessen hunger and give staffs a natural energy refill to keep them on track before launch time.

Every company’s most treasured asset is its workforce. Catering to your staff’s needs and wellness by providing them with great water will go a long way in improving your organization’s productivity, staff’s healthy, and your company’s reputation.

Is It Mandatory To Provide Your Employees With Potable Drinking Water?

Yes. It is mandatory for all business in the United States to provide a healthy and safe working environment which includes an unlimited supply of clean drinking water to keep them healthy and hydrated at the course of their work.

Enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and backed by the US drinking water laws, The law ensures employees across the country have access to healthy drinking water at their place of work assignment.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have a set of guidelines and standards to be met by all employers of labor across the country.

However, OSHA does not enforce the installation of a filtered water dispenser or water filtration system. You only have to provide drinking water from a reliable water supply that meets the “sanitary” requirements according to the laws of the state. For example, your drinking water source can be from the sink at the staff break room as long as the water meets OSHA guidelines. The decision to go the extra mile and provide a water filtration system for your staffs solely depends on your choice.

Is It Illegal To Deny Your Employee Drinking Water?

It’s illegal to deny your employee portable drinking water in the United States of America. It is the primary obligation of the employer to provide potable drinking water as stated in the Workplace (Health, Safety, and Welfare) Regulations of 1992. Under this act, an employer in the United States must provide “adequate supply of wholesome drinking water” and must ensure it is always available at a marked location within the office building.

Disclaimer: The Information above is from a general background research and not a form of legal or financial advice for a particular work situation. Talk to a legal professional or an independent financial advisor for any concern you may have on your workplace.

Steve Todd

Steve Todd, founder of Open Sourced Workplace and is a recognized thought leader in workplace strategy and the future of work. With a passion for work from anywhere, Steve has successfully implemented transformative strategies that enhance productivity and employee satisfaction. Through Open Sourced Workplace, he fosters collaboration among HR, facilities management, technology, and real estate professionals, providing valuable insights and resources. As a speaker and contributor to various publications, Steve remains dedicated to staying at the forefront of workplace innovation, helping organizations thrive in today's dynamic work environment.

Recent Posts