Why Your Office Needs a Water Cooler Before A Hot Summer Arrives

As the (hopefully) sunnier and warmer months get closer, getting your office or workspace prepared for the heat is essential. Beyond the annual air conditioning battles, one of the easiest ways to help everyone maintain a pleasant, comfortable, and productive working environment is to get your office water cooler ready. Proper hydration in the office is vital to keeping everyone refreshed, focused, and healthy, especially as those temperatures start to rise.

Why is office hydration important?

Dehydration, even mild cases, can lead to a range of unpleasant issues, from tiredness and headaches to reduced concentration and productivity. With summer on the way and bringing higher temperatures with it, offices will get warmer and employees will be at a greater risk of dehydration symptoms – even if they don't realise it. A water cooler installed in your office gives everyone a convenient and easily accessible way to stay hydrated.

The top benefits of staying hydrated at work

We know that drinking water and staying hydrated at work can have a big influence on everyone and how they perform throughout the day. Here are just some of the benefits that keeping topped up with water can have:

• Increased productivity – Proper hydration helps improve cognitive function, concentration, and energy levels, so no more feeling sluggish and tired.
• Better overall health – Drinking water regularly helps prevent headaches, dizziness, and other dehydration-related symptoms.
• Enhanced mood – A bit like hunger, dehydration can negatively affect someone’s mood and increase their stress or irritability levels.
• Improved physical health – Water helps the body’s digestion, circulation, muscles, and joint lubrication, helping to feel as physically healthy as possible.

Why a water cooler could be your smartest office investment

An office water cooler is more than just a convenience. It’s essential to help employees maintain good health and have a comfortable and efficient office environment, especially in hot weather. Here are five reasons why installing a bottled water cooler before the summer heat sets in could be your smartest investment:

1. Encourages employees to drink more water

Having easy access to cool, refreshing, fully filtered water gets employees excited to drink more throughout the day. Often, people don’t drink enough water mainly because they forget or don’t have a convenient source available. A water cooler gives them a visual reminder to stay hydrated.

2. Helps stop drinking sugary drinks

During the summer, it’s easy for employees to crack open a sugary fizzy drink to stay cool and refreshed. But these can actually cause dehydration and energy crashes. Great-tasting chilled water from a water cooler gives them a healthier choice.

3. Improves office morale and well-being

Employees appreciate workplace perks that will improve their well-being. And if you don’t have one yet, something as easy and simple as a water cooler can boost morale by showing that you care about their health and comfort.

4. Maintains productivity and focus during heatwaves

In the UK, hot summers are becoming more frequent and causing more discomfort in the workplace. Overbearing heat can lead to sluggishness, tiredness, and reduced productivity. Staying hydrated is essential to beating heat exhaustion and staying focused.

5. Saves money compared to bottled water

It’s not unusual to see bottled water in offices as a way for employees to keep drinking. But this can be expensive and environmentally bad. A water cooler gives you an eco-friendly and cost-saving alternative by delivering filtered or spring water on demand, reducing the need for plastic bottles.

Choosing the right water cooler for your office

Making sure you choose the right water cooler for your office is a decision that should have a lot of thought behind it. There are plenty of models in different sizes available, so it’s essential to find one that meets the needs of everyone in your office. Give some thought to these four things:

1. The type of water cooler

• Bottled water coolers – These coolers are ideal for offices that don’t have direct access to a mains water supply and can be positioned wherever you need them. They use large 13 or 18.9 litre water bottles that are replaced when empty, which can be delivered directly to your office.
• Mains-fed (plumbed-in) water coolers – These more permanent water coolers connect directly to your office’s mains water supply, giving you unlimited, fully filtered water without needing bottle replacements.

Both of these water cooler options are available from Thirsty Work as countertop models. So if your office is short on floor space or you only have an office with a few people, a Countertop model can be a space saver.

2. Capacity and usage needs

There’s little point in getting a water cooler that has a capacity to deliver enough cold or hot water to satisfy hundreds of people if you don't need it. Think about the number of employees in your office and how much water they’re likely to drink each day. A small team may do well with a 5-litre per hour water cooler, while larger offices might need a large capacity unit to cope with higher demand.

3. Temperature options

Many water coolers offer a choice of two or three temperatures, so when you’re looking into which you need, ask your team what they’ll want to use most and whether you’d need a model that gives you all these temperature settings. Here’s what’s available:

• Filtered cold – delivering ice-cold, pure-filtered mains and spring water
• Filtered ambient – the same water, just served at a pleasant room temperature
• Filtered hot – ideal if your team also needs hot water for tea and coffee rounds

Top tips to encourage office hydration

When everyone is crazy busy getting through their workload, it can be easy to forget to take time out to grab some water and stay hydrated. Drinking enough water has many benefits, especially in the summer, as we’ve already covered, but you can always do more. Installing a water cooler is a great first step (obviously), but it’s also important to promote a culture of office hydration. Here are four tips to help encourage employees to drink more water:

• Provide reusable water bottles – Everyone loves a freebie, so to encourage sustainability and hydration, give your team some branded reusable water bottles.
• Set hydration reminders – Set times during the day or send occasional email reminders about the importance of drinking water, which can help make drinking water a healthy habit.
• Make water easily accessible – Place your water cooler in a central, high-traffic area so employees can’t miss it and can refill their bottles quickly and easily.
• Limit your caffeine intake – We all love a good tea or coffee to get us going, but caffeine can actually dehydrate. Plus, it’s a diuretic, so you lose even more of your body’s fluids.

Get your office water cooler ready with Thirsty Work 

With the first flushes of summer well on their way, now is the time to invest in a water cooler for your office. Making sure your team stays hydrated will improve their health and well-being, but also give productivity and overall workplace satisfaction a big boost too.

If you need more information on which water cooler is best for your office, call us today on 01392 877 172 or email hello@thirstywork.com and we’ll help you find the perfect model that keeps your team refreshed all summer long. You can also get your free quote and start your 10-day free trial on a water cooler of your choice.