Posts from — June 2009

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people modify their lifestyle to move toward a state of ideal health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, modify behavior, and create environments that support good health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest influence in producing lasting change.”

Company Health Promotion Program: Action Steps

The process of building a Employee Wellness Program involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your staff members
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and implementing the programs
• Building in motivational rewards and incentives
• Measuring the effect
• Revising programs based on assessment outcomes

It may even include beginning policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your workplace (such as flextime).

Steps to Starting a Company Health Promotion Program

• Conduct an organization assessment
• Obtain senior staff reinforcement
• Establish a Employee Health Promotion Program Committee
• Obtain employee input
• Develop goals and objectives
• Design and enable program activities
• Select incentives
• Assess outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to better the nation’s health is through accross the board Corporate Wellness Programs. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs may help workers live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior modification programs. In fact, one of the goals/objectives of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to improve the proportion of workers that participate in a accross the board Corporate Wellness Program at their worksite to 75 percent.

5 Ways to Assess and Improve Your staff members’ Health

Emotional health is a state of wellness that comes from understanding and acknowledging our emotions and finding appropriate ways to express them. As employees, we often bring emotional problems from our childhood or current family life into the workplace because we haven’t dealt with them effectively outside of work. This can seriously damage workplace relationships and lead to poor performance and harmful feelings all around.

Many tools and techniques exist for helping us better our emotional health. Some of the most common are given below, with real-life case histories illustrating their use. If an unpleasant mood or feeling persists over a length of time, do not hesitate to seek out a qualified professional. Company Wellness Programs usually have professional reinforcement already in place as part of their services.

1. Wellness Coaching / Wellness Counseling:
One of the hallmarks of emotional health is the willingness to ask for help when we need it. Confidential professional help, the coaching and counseling given by employee assistance or wellness programs, can support an external source of strength and insight for “working out” emotionally-based issues instead of “working them in” to your work.

2. Self-help Groups:
Self-help groups are designed to aid people in emotional situations in which they feel alone. The purpose of these groups is twofold: to allow people to safely feel and express their emotions, and to help break their isolation at work and/or in society at large and reintegrate them into society with the backing of a peer group.

The classic self-help group is Alcoholics Anonymous, but thanks to technology, it’s possible to connect with others that have common health challenges, no matter how unique the situation. People are taking advantage of tele-conference groups and social websites, such as sparkpeople.com and revolutionhealth.com. Corporate Wellness Programs often have such groups available through web-based or phone support. Progressive corporate wellness provider Exan Wellness, for example, offers teleconference cell groups and moderated wellness forums for interacting with others in a supportive, confidential and anonymous environment. People with shared challenges get together and discuss the emotional challenges they are facing at work or in other areas of their lives and work through modification together.

3. Journaling: Journaling is frequently recommended by counsellors as a way to help identify and process emotions. People record their emotions in writing as they experience them, in whatever form they wish. By helping the writer gain greater emotional clarity, journaling can help in making more emotionally informed decisions. In much the same way, letter writing enables people to identify and process the emotions they feel in relation to others. The letter need not be sent or its contents shared: it simply supplies a place for the expression of feelings.

An 18-year-old “army brat,” Brent has always done well at school, academically and athletically. But in his last year of high school, something seems to have happened to him. He has lost all interest in school, becoming moody and withdrawn.

Brent describes to his guidance counselor all the times he had to move when he was growing up. Each move wrenched him from his friends and forced him to play the role of the “new kid on the block.” The counselor suggests that Brent write letters to the friends he has missed over the years telling them how he felt. Finally, he has a chance to say a proper goodbye.

4. Review Your Emotional Wellness: Businesses that seek to boost employees’ interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence in the workplace are more thriving, according to ground-breaking journalist Daniel Goleman. And emotional intelligence is the buzzword in workplaces these days. Some Worksite Wellness Programs have information about emotional intelligence, or emotional health assessments. Seek out more information about emotional intelligence for better corporate wellness.

5. Friendships/Support Systems: Friendships allow people to feel supported in their emotional journeys. At the same time, they give people an opportunity to advance their empathetic skills. These skills are also significant for workplace health. When we are empathic with fellow employees, we help them resolve negative or unhealthy emotions. New friendships are made through hobbies, classes, clubs, or even through online groups. Many people are finding emotional satisfaction by establishing relationships through Facebook and other social websites.

At times worksite stress that is not dealt with in a healthy manner can be brought home. A 36-year-old mother of three, Sarah, wants to be a wonderful wife, a wonderful mother, and a success at her work. One day, drained after a long day at work, she shouted at her rambunctious children and threatened to hit her youngest son. Her behavior horrified her. To make matters worse, she believes she is a failure at her work as well as at motherhood. She watches with jealousy as younger co-employees advance much more rapidly up the corporate ladder despite having less experience than she has.

On the advice of a counselor, she decides to take time out for herself and take a course for amateur painters. It doesn’t take long before she strikes up a friendship with a single mom in the class. She once led a life very similar to Sarah’s before managing to achieve a better balance between work and family. Her new friend becomes a much-needed sounding board for Sarah and offers her perspectives on her life that she hadn’t considered before.

25 percent Jump in Employer Interest in Employee Health and Wellness

Worksite wellness for their employees, corporations are discovering, is great for the health of their corporations as well. Worksite Health Promotion Programs help to cut the costs associated with poor employee health, which include absenteeism, loss of productiveness and poor work quality.

A new Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 American businesses indicated a valuable paradigm shift in how businesses view health benefits for their staff members. Of those surveyed this year, 88% are committed to instituting long-term health care assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their staff members, with the objective of boosting the health and productiveness of their workforce. This represents a 25% rise in interest in Corporate Wellness Programs over 2007.

A strong offering of Corporate Health Promotion Programs to meet the demand has resulted. Health assistance providers have broadened their programs with tools that address general lifestyle factors, physical, social and psychological health factors. Programs look to predict chronic disease in their staff members and give them the tools and the information to prevent it. Companies also demand a way to measure the effectiveness of their health care spending.

“Self-care is our motive,” says Vic Lebouthillier, president of progressive health and wellness provider Exan Wellness.”We really believe giving staff members tools to help them manage their own health, and promoting the benefits, while giving people resources to reach out for help is the key to efficacious lifestyle modification. Corporations are also telling us they need a cost-effective way to deliver Company Health Promotion Programs. The sort of program we have developed over years delivers the highest medical care return on investment.”

Combining workplace wellness promotions, web-based assessments and health trackers, web-based health information, phone conferences and self-help groups, and access to a wide variety of health professionals, is behind the success of the Exan program. “Having web-based statistics about workers’ health also makes it easier to track the bottom line – ROI” says Vic Lebouthillier.

“Corporations are moving beyond their traditional role as a provider of health care benefits to foster holistic programs that pinpoint the specific health needs of their employee populations, drive employee behavior modification and eliminate barriers to healthcare,” says Jim Winkler, leader of Hewitt’s health management consulting practice.

Nevertheless, in a separate survey of 30,000 workers, 74 percent said that, even though they felt their business had an obligation to help them be aware of how to use their health benefits program, only 12 percent felt the business had any right to tell them how to be healthy. Based on these results, corporations need to drive home the fact that improved health is better for their workers as well as the business. It’s a win-win situation.

Employers and employees did find common ground when it came to future healthcare. Both surveys indicate that 95 percent of employees understand that their taking care of their health today will impact future medical care payments. A similar percentage also understand the valuable of early detection and prevention when it comes to saving on medical care expenditures.

Cost is valuable for most corporations as well. Over 80% of those surveyed made cost mitigation a priority for 2008, but those cuts did not involve shifting responsibility for medical care onto staff members. Although 64% of corporations have transfered expenditures to their staff members, only 17% intend  to do so in the next 3-5 years. Similarly with health reimbursement accounts, 20% now offer these, but only about 5% intend  to use them in 2008.

These survey results indicate companies are getting more proactive in helping their staff members to modify behaviors and take ownership of their own health futures. This is obviously good for the well-being of staff members, but also for the well-being of the companies they work for. Almost half the companies surveyed were convinced that changing health behaviors was key to greater productiveness and decrease absentee rates. Over 60 percent aim  to institute programs that help staff members modify and/or sustain a healthier lifestyle. Almost of these companies will also use data and measurements to ensure their healthcare strategies meet their healthcare objectives?

It is obvious to most Americans (especially those of us in business) that health care costs are skyrocketing out of control. No one doubts that either the market will solve the issue OR the government will impose one on us. Managed care has failed from either a cost containment or quality of care perspective. Employers have reached the point where the cost of offering health care insurance is almost as burdensome as government regulation. It’s time for some new thinking on health care and its effect on business and vice versa. “Corporate wellness” as an operational perspective rather than merely window dressing is one way to deal effectively with rising health care costs.

The Insurance Issue

The first step in amending the concern is to realize that an employee’s health is their own responsibility. Expecting organizations to support unlimited health care insurance coverage is simply unrealistic and unreasonable. It’s time for organizations (on a broad scale) to reconsider their role in offering health care insurance coverage. Instead of offering complete coverage for all staff members through group plans, organizations must begin to modify the burden of health coverage to those covered.

Here’s the approach. Provide catastrophic healthcare insurance as a group benefit to all workers with a big enough deductible (say $5000 per employee) to make the cost affordable for the organization. Then, allow workers to buy their own healthcare insurance policies (based on their own needs) and pay for them through payroll deduction with pre-tax earnings. There are numerous insurance organizations that sell individual plans on this basis. Everybody wins. Employees can tailor their coverage to their own needs and circumstances using their own doctors. Businesses win by stopping the endless cycle of rising expenditures and ever-changing plans. And when people become responsible for the cost of their own insurance, they become more attentive to their own health. Besides, if an employee is interested in working for you ONLY because your organization offers great insurance benefits aren’t they telling you they’re going to cost you more money in the future?

Establish a “Wellness Culture”

Our current “sickness culture” perpetuates the health care crisis and hastens the demise of market-based solutions. By sickness culture, I mean our focus on health concerns rather than on having a healthy worksite and performance culture.

So, what would a “wellness culture” look like? First, rather than paid sick days, workers might be rewarded at year’s end with an attendance bonus. Staff Members would be reimbursed for successful completion of tobacco cessation and weight-loss programs. Companies would invest in corporate memberships at local health clubs so every employee can participate. Staff Members would be offered in-house wellness programs on a variety of issues ranging from ergonomics to stress management. Finally, corporations would commit to hiring and retaining healthy workers. Simply put, healthy workers cost less and are more productive than unhealthy ones. Applicants must be screened for health habits and practices that limit their productiveness and improve the likelihood of future expense. While this may seem harsh, it rewards those workers whose personal lifestyle and habits make sure the best Return on Investment by the company committing to hire, train and pay them.

Be open to “alternative and complementary” approaches

Research studies published in major healthcare journals reveal that individuals who use “alternative and complementary” health modalities (including chiropractic, acupuncture, yoga and massage) are generally healthier, better educated, take fewer medications and miss fewer days from work than the average American. Since these individuals look for ways to stay healthy without drugs and surgery, they end up being a net benefit in terms of attendance and productiveness. Old prejudices in this area should be discarded in order for businesses to improve productiveness and stimulate profitability

Conclusion

Medical Care expenditures are increasing at a staggering pace. Managed care is an abysmal failure. Employers are buckling under the pressure of providing health coverage to their employees. American competitiveness in the market is sagging. These times call for extraordinary solutions. It’s time for American organizations to consider some out-of-the-box solutions to the healthcare crisis. Corporation wellness is an approach that is timely, achievable and reasonable given the alternatives. All options must be considered while we still have a chance.

Research spanning more than a decade has consistently shown Worksite Health Promotion Programs to be financially effective and that every dollar invested on a corporate wellness program can return $2.30 and $10.10 by reducing absenteeism, sick day usage and by lowering insurance costs. Additionally it is noted that there are marked improvements in employee effectiveness and productivity in organizations that start a Worksite Health Promotion Program.

Healthy organizations enjoy improved employee morale and an improved ability to attract and retain key people. Additionally, workers are more alert and beneficial. For instance, Coca Cola reports that they save an estimated $500 a year per employee once they implemented a exercise program in which 60 percent of their workers take part. Coors Brewing Business stated that workers who participated in their Company Wellness Programs reduced their absentee rate by 18%.

staff members enjoy their share of advantages from Company Wellness Programs too. A healthy lifestyle impacts every part of a person’s life, including their work environment. Company Wellness Programs result in fewer injuries, less human error and a work environment that is more harmonious and relaxed. Additionally, staff members who work at a organization that implements a Company Wellness Program know that their organization is concerned about their health & wellness. Employees frequently report a reduction in their stress levels due to Company Wellness Programs.

As workers feel better, more relaxed, more valued and more human to their organization; they enjoy an increase in productivity. This growth in productivity, while advantageous to the organization, is also essential to the employee as it increases their own sense of self worth and confidence levels. Workers who feel thriving and who feel that they accomplish objectives are central happier and in a better frame of mind.

The advantages of Employee Wellness Programs, both tangible and intangible, are evident. It is a wise move for a organization to enable a Employee Wellness Program, particularly when they incorporate some form of mental health aspect into it. This also has social advantages as domestic violence and child abuse is determined to be diminished in areas where wellness programs are implemented. These days, a organization can almost not afford to have some sort of wellness program to offer to their employees.

Some of the top wellness programs currently in use today include:

Health Risk Assessments or HRAs

Health Risk Assessment is a top corporate wellness program currently in use globally. Organizations that enable it determine the safety and health problems of staff members by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the staff members.

It can, for example, guide the company into determining how the air quality within an office room affects the users and then help the assessment group to come up with the measures significant to correct the issue. An HRA can also evaluate the level of exposure staff members have to certain hazardous or dangerous materials and practices.

Immunizations

This isn’t always practiced in every country since there are regions where government sponsored immunization shots are available. Still, it has also become an significant component of the top Workplace Health Promotion Programs in numerous companies in North America.

Immunization shots, such as those used to combat flu, for example, are available to staff members for no cost.

EAP

Employee Assistance Program(EAP)s consist of a wide variety of services. It can range from offering educational resources to staff members regarding health concerns to sponsoring health services and health care. In numerous corporations, medical and insurance have also become a staple part of their benefits system.

In-house diet drives

This is another wellness program that companies use, especially those that offer in-house commissary or cafeteria services. Instead of serving richer, high-calorie fare, cafeterias offer options for a healthier diet, usually in the form of low-calorie foods and sugar substitutes.

In-house employee wellness newsletter and campaign drives

One of the top wellness programs that employers can implement is a self-powered tool using a newsletter to promote wellness, coupled with a visible campaign. The campaign may be done periodically and focus on a specific topic, such as smoking risks, cancer, stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, safety in the worksite, etc.

The employee wellness newsletter in itself can be an effective means to deliver information to workers or members of a employer but it is far from perfect. Some workers, for example, may not read the newsletter entirely or even pay attention to it. If the issues outlined in the newsletter are promoted through an active and highly visible campaign, it will be easier to maximize positive results.

Exercise and physical activity drives

Another top wellness program for companies is one that involves physical activities. Corporations often sponsor exercise-related activities such as marathons and company sports programs to advocate workers to remain fit or lose excess weight. In mid- to large-sized companies, companies may even pay for fitness center memberships or in-house exercise facilities.

Incentives and Rewards

Some of the top wellness programs implemented by companies involve Incentives and Rewards. This involves organization-sponsored programs that reward staff members for achieving specific wellness-related goals. Participation in health campaigns and signing up for wellness programs are two of the most frequently rewarded schemes. Rewards can range from special recognitions to over time acquired points (for bigger rewards) to specific gifts. In a few cases, cash may also be used.

Nevertheless, incentive systems have had mixed reactions and levels of success. But it continues to be one of the top choices among companies who are willing to modify it in order to fit their unique needs.

Peer Pressure

In countless businesses, businesses take advantage of peer pressure in order to advocate employees to participate in wellness programs. This is currently one of the favorite Worksite Health Promotion Programs currently in use today and growing in popularity. Peer pressure is often leveraged to help reward competitions referring to worksite wellness and to persuade employees to be active in business-sponsored health & wellness fairs.

Wellness is a great concept. It brings happiness into health and encourages a truly holistic approach to life. Wikipedia defines wellness as a healthy balance of the mind-body and spirit that results in an overall feeling of wellbeing. It sounds like exactly what every one is looking for. But when you begin to talk about corporate wellness, or worksite wellness, all life goes out of the concept. Total solutions, disease management and health screening do not inspire visions of enjoying life and living it to the full. They begin from the assumption that sickness is here to stay and needs to be discovered, managed and controlled but can never be healed.

The wellness industry is growing phenomenally fast. Wellness guru, Paul Zane Pilzer, has labeled it the next trillion dollar industry. But wellness has two different faces. On the one hand there are the small organizations – people working from home or in small centers selling all kinds of wellness products and services at a speed of growth that is escalating rapidly. On the other hand corporate wellness is also exploding but in a very different direction.

The baby boomers who are driving the popular wellness revolution have been described as the first generation to refuse to accept the inevitability of death. They are actively looking for ways to prevent aging, stay healthy into old age and enjoy themselves more than ever before after retirement. This is a radical departure from current notions of old age, which are often dominated by pictures of sickness, frailty and suffering.

The employers have been largely forced to take on wellness. This is partly through legislative pressure, with many countries introducing laws to make employers liable for stress-related sickness in their employees. It is also monetarily motivated, as research has repeatedly demonstrated the enormous expenditures of absenteeism (and increasingly of presenteeism as well).

Whereas the baby boomers are actively looking for new solutions and new lifestyles the employers are struggling to organize largely traditional and mainstream health systems, such as doctors, nurses, insurance and screening systems. The problem is that the traditional health system does not have solutions for the concerns that people are handling.

Nobody ever went to see a doctor to get happy, because a doctor doesn’t have any clue how to make people happy. And a myriad of stress-related health issues are described as chronic diseases, which means that they last for a very long time – or perhaps for the rest of your life – because there is no medical cure. Counseling is a common offering in businesses for emotional issues, but whilst it may provide a useful pressure valve it is not a powerful treatment for stress, unhappiness or depression.

Imagine walking into a company where the workers are happy, healthy, full of inspiration, fit, love working, have meaningful family lives, active social lives, and enjoyable relationships at work and in their area. That kind of company would be a pleasure to work in and bound to be efficacious because people would be working to their optimum capacity.

So can we establish a system of true wellness that will serve the development of the businesses and their employees and will pay for itself because of the advantages that both sides will gain?

First of all we have to face the fact that we can’t place all the responsibility into the hands of the current health system. Absenteeism, stress, depression, the very roots of the wellness revolution, have not been solved by the current system. If they had been we wouldn’t have this revolution, we would all be much more well. So we need to look elsewhere for solutions.

We also cannot rely on makeshift feel-good wellness offerings, such as the onsite massage team which visits the office once a month or the wellness day that raises awareness for a little while but leaves most people unaffected. They are simple to organize but have little or no real importance on employee wellness.

Organization needs are different than individual needs and many of the new small wellness companies that are springing up simply don’t have the capacity to serve the corporate market. Nonetheless it is in the best interest of both companies and employees to discover and develop systems of wellness and health that really work – that benefit people to be happy, handle stress, love working, and to have proper energy to go home at the end of the day and enjoy their family and social life. So far the corporate world has hijacked the concept of wellness and turned it into a modern version of occupational health. It is time to raise the vision and learn how to make truly healthy, happy workplaces where people thrive.

High rates of employee turnover and the expenditures of sick days are increasingly taking bites into company profits. The high cost of recruitment programs only adds to the challenges that these problems in total cost the average company. Many companies are finding the solution to these challenges by improving job satisfaction, team building, and the implementation of programs that provide a reduction in these expenditures.

It has become increasingly clear to most managers that a well designed wellness program / exercise program with a strong nutritional and fitness lifestyle emphasis will directly meet this need. Senior Leadership’s goals and objectives for a constructive wellness program must be viewed through the perspective of increased employee productivity, decreased absenteeism due to health related causes, improved employee morale, decreased utilisation of corporation subsidised health benefits, enhanced group cohesion and success and a reduction in turnover due to lack of job satisfaction. It is obvious that an improvement in any of these areas will have a positive effect on the monetary status of any organisation.

The benefits from an workers point of view can be seen in improved health, increased energy levels, diminished body fat, a more youthful fit body, an increased ability to handle work related stress, greater feelings of confidence and morale and more social groups at work contributing to greater feelings of satisfaction with their work and workplace.

To be most productive a wellness program needs to achieve both management’s and employee’s goals/objectives, and this can be accomplished through a program that will support the individual employee with an awareness of their current physical condition and attitudes to fitness and wellness, and the benefits of attaining a fitter, healthier lifestyle, and a plan that will allow them to achieve the essential changes to their physical condition that can be applied in the context of their life and work.

The Bottom Line – Company Wellness Programs

Diminished Rates of Absenteeism – Dupont reduced absenteeism by 47.5% over six years for the participants of their employer fitness program, (Health Behaviour, March 1992).

Diminished Health Care Costs – Steel case showed a decline in health care claim costs of 55% for corporate fitness program participants over non-participants over a six year period – an average of $478.61 for participants vs. non-participants who averaged $868.88, (The Am. Journal of Health Promotion, Sept/Oct, 1991).

Lowered Turnover – Turnover among fitness program participants at the Canadian Life Assurance Organization was 32.4% lower over a seven year period compared with non-participants (Canadian Journal of Public Health, Jan/Feb, 1988).

Positive Return on Investment – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Indiana reported that its business fitness program had a 250 percent return on investment; $2.51 for every $1 invested over a five year period (American Journal of Health Promotion, March, April, 1991).

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to advocate Fortune 1000 businesses to consider making workforce health a CEO concern and adopt strategies to encourage prevention and wellness. After several years of double-digit rate increases for medical insurance, businesses are realizing that one of the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have staff members take more responsibility for both expenditures and health choices. A majority of businesses surveyed feel that the best way for reducing expenditures is financial incentives/rewards to advocate staff members to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Nearly 100% of companies surveyed say that health costs will be a critical or significant issue over the next five years, according to a survey by United Benefit Advisors. More companies are adopting higher deductible medical programs with HRA’s or HSA’S, wellness programs, and expanded disease management programs in order to control ever-growing healthcare costs.

Failure to deal with these issues might be disastrous for a business. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer of Alegent Health recently stated, “I think that we have built a healthcare machinery we can’t afford. I think we are choking the economic engine of America.” In his October 2005 newsletter, Dr. Andrew Weil stated, “I think rising health- care expenditures are becoming the major economic problem in our nation”. Obesity expenditures California employers billions of dollars each year. Projected expenditures for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect healthcare expenditures, worker’s compensation, and lost work rate. California has experienced one of the fastest growing rates of obesity of any state.

According to California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe, “The obesity epidemic is more than a public health crisis, it is an economic crisis.” What is frightening is that most people do not even realize that they are obese, which is defined as only 20 percent above normal weight. There is a great need for additional education on weight and resulting diseases, and the worksite is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can result in a significant return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce results in a very short period of time.

Although a myriad of organizations have attempted some form of wellness program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing. In many cases, the healthier employees participated for rewards and incentives, such as health club memberships, but those who required it most did not take advantage of the program in a meaningful way. Organizations are looking at ways to promote more employees to buy into the wellness movement.

A current webinar hosted by Human Resource Executive Magazine and presented by Carlson Marketing Group titled, “Healthier employees; Healthier Bottom Line: Engaging employees is the Missing Link in Managing Health Care Costs,” drove this point home. This session offered actionable advice on how businesses are achieving higher impact with their wellness investments by focusing on employee program engagement. It also highlighted how you can establish an Economic Engagement Model to forecast the potential impact for your organization.

Employers can no longer overlook the concern of their employee’s unhealthy lifestyles and must take action to engage them in a meaningful wellness program to decrease health costs, absenteeism and lost productiveness. staff members also advance as they derive better health and greater satisfaction in both their personal and professional lives. The alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the corporation.

A listing of potential wellness subject matters and ideas not previously mentioned follows. Take some time to “think tank and brainstorm” new ideas with your own internal employee Workplace Wellness Program Committee.

Nutrition Category
• Low-fat campaign/food groups
• Team salad bars
• Vending machine changes
• Diet analysis by a dietician
• Produce on parade
• Eating disorder support group
• Restaurant education

Physical Activity/Exercise Category
• “Elevoiders” – stair climbing
• Poker walk
• Mall walking program
• Facilities – showers, bike lockers, exercise space, etc.
• Team treks
• Walk-a-block trails
• Recreational tournaments
• How-to-choose equipment talks
• Running maps
• Biking maps
• Deskercises (mini stretches for desk jockeys)
• Fit-over-forty club
• Tennis shoe Tuesday
• Walk 100 miles in 100 days
• Walking “buddies”
• NW Trek!

Miscellaneous Category
• House calls
• Meet your benefits providers
• Dental health
• Fire safety
• Ergonomic assessments
• Self-help learning
• CPR/first aid course
• Hearing test
• Hand washing campaign
• Cancer screenings
• Back class
• Passports to health
• Vision screenings

Stress Management Category
• Comedy hour
• Stress Pest
• Humor newsletter
• Money management classes
• Time management classes
• Relaxation class
• Better sleep campaign
• Relaxation room