Your Monthly Check-Up: Stressed Out?

Work-related stress is not a new concept, but what exactly are the implications of being stressed out at work or due to workplace factors? A recent article in Incentive Magazine addresses this issue.

In “Worker Stress is a Top Concern,” writer Alex Palmer focuses the results of a new report by UK-based health insurance company Aviva, which shows that employers are starting to take the health of their employees into greater consideration.

About two-thirds (65 percent) of employers say it’s more important than ever to protect the health of their employees, with 43 percent offering programs to encourage work-life balance, 21 percent promoting healthy eating and the same amount offering  cycle-to-work programs. These efforts have had an impact on employees: 57 percent said that if they feel healthy, they are more productive at work, while 52 percent believe that they are more loyal to a company that helped them look after their health.

While the focus on employees’ health is improving, stress is still a top concern, according to the report. Palmer’s article states that more than half – about 53 percent – of employees responded that stress is a problem within their places of employment.

“Over the years we’ve seen an increased appetite for workplace well-being,” says Mark Noble, health director for UK Life for Aviva, in the report as quoted in Palmer’s article. “Moreover, we’ve seen a gradual recognition of the importance of putting proactive solutions into place to help keep employees healthy and aid early intervention.”

Increased expectations within many of these jobs may be part of the reason for this motivation toward healthier lifestyles, according to Palmer. For some employers, it is becoming a necessity for their employees to work harder and put in more hours, which makes a case for maintaining optimal health by practicing healthy habits.

Underestimating job requirements may also be leading to increased employee stress. According to Palmer’s article, “55 percent of employees report that a high-pressure work environment has become the norm, compared to just 26 percent of employers who said the same.”

What kinds of practices are in place to help offset the effects of stress in your office? Do your employers actively promote healthy habits both at work and at home? What personal tactics do you take when you feel the effects of stress creeping in that could potentially help some of your employees or coworkers? Talk to us in the “Comments” section below!

Your Monthly Check-Up: New Year, New You!

 

The holidays are a time for indulgence, but once they’re over many people resolve to cut back on sweets and fatty foods, reach for the fruits and veggies and spend more time at the gym. With the New Year upon us, it’s the perfect time to take a look at what your workplace provides by way of health and wellness initiatives.

“Employers are realizing that wellness initiatives represent a solid business strategy with myriad benefits,” says Tom Mason, President of the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota, in the Small Business Trends article “Employers Say Wellness Programs Work” by Rieva Lesonsky.

The article points to a study conducted by the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota called “The State of Workplace Wellness in America.” According to the study:

Business leaders nationwide and in six states were polled to find out what they thought of workplace wellness programs and what challenges they faced in implementing them. Three-fourths of respondents said community-based networks of business leaders would be useful resources to learn about workplace wellness initiatives and share information and ideas. 

The article cites that some of the benefits of these programs include lower healthcare costs and reduced workers’ comp claims, boosts in productivity, lower absenteeism rates and the overall enjoyment employees experience from living healthier lives. More than half of employers in the survey already had workplace wellness programs in place, and the majority (92 percent) stated that improving employee health was their most important goal, followed by reducing healthcare costs, according to Lesonsky’s article.  

If your company has yet to establish a wellness program for its employees, now is the time to do so, and Lesonsky outlines some steps in her article that you can take to make implementation a little easier:

1. Lead the Way – Model positive habits yourself instead of taking the “Do as I say, not as I do” approach.

2. Designate a Leader – Put someone in charge of the wellness plan and give them a budget and time frame to  work with.

3. Make it Relevant – Ensure your new initiative is tailored to your company’s culture and your employees’ needs.

4. Involve your Insurance Company – Check and see if your carrier offers corporate wellness plans or reduced rates on classes or gym memberships – or have someone come out and talk to your staff about healthy lifestyle options.

The ways in which you can create a healthier environment at your company are nearly endless, and all it takes is a few steps to get your employees engaged in their own wellness and moving toward a lifetime of health and happiness. Why not make your workplace wellness initiation your new year’s resolution?

Your Monthly Check-Up: Incentivizing your Employees’ Healthy Lifestyles

A hot topic this year within both the incentive realm and the wellness realm has been the rise of obesity in America and the growing importance for health initiatives in the workplace. Incentive Magazine covers this topic in its November/December issue in an article titled “To Your Health” by senior editor Andrea Doyle. The main crux of the article focuses on wellness initiatives being not only good for your employees, but good for your bottom line by lowering insurance premiums.

Doyle’s article starts out by saying that, while most Americans are well aware of what it takes to be healthy, many are not willing to put forth the effort toward maintaining their health. She cites a study called “F is in Fat: How Obesity Threatens America’s Future 2012,” which states, “By 2030, medical costs associated with treating preventable obesity-related diseases are estimated to increase by $48 billion to $66 billion in the US, and the loss in economic productivity could be between $390 billion and $580 billion annually by 2030.” This also translates to exorbitant medical costs spent on treating issues that are entirely preventable.

To combat this – and in direct response to employees spending more and more time in the office and generally sedentary – companies are offering wellness incentives to help raise awareness and offer motivation for choosing habits that have huge payoffs but are often very challenging to stick with, especially during holiday season and other times of year.

One such company noted in the article is Hallmark Business Connections, which offers 13 weeks of weight loss classes to employees. If an employee attends 12 of the 13 classes, the company pays for the program, according to Jennifer Patel, who leads Hallmark’s health and wellness team.

“A colleague lost almost 50 pounds as a result of participating in this program, and it has changed her life,” Patel says. “It’s also proof that if you provide opportunities and incentives for your employees to make behavior changes, amazing things can happen.”

Doyle points to another company in her article, FC USA, which has its own full-time wellness guru in Susan Levy Malandra – whose official title is Healthwise Coordinator for the company. While hiring a full-time health coordinator may be out of reach for many companies, the programs Malandra uses to motivate her colleagues are not.

Malandra, who has 20 years of teaching group fitness classes under her belt, uses pedometers, contests and organized runs to help motivate her FC USA colleagues. She also travels around the country and meets with all US-based employees for “Bio Age” consultations, which tests a variety of physical, nutritional and lifestyle factors to determine the employees overall well-being, or Bio Age.

Malandra notes that follow-up is key to success and she regularly checks in on employees’ progress and writes a monthly newsletter that includes healthy lifestyle tips and recipes. And as an incentive to stay on track or meet goals, FC USA offers trips, merchandise, raffles and cash rewards to its employees for maintaining their healthy lifestyles.

Implementing a wellness initiative at your company isn’t hard, but it does take time, creativity and the interest of your employees. The first steps are always the hardest, but if you can find ways to motivate your employees and incentivize their progress and goals, you’ll be that much closer to increased productivity and decreased medical costs. Plus, you’ll be setting up your employees for a lifetime of wellness, and there is truly nothing more important than your health!

Your Monthly Check-Up: Winning at Workplace Wellness

In the last month alone, several great articles have come to our attention focused on just how important wellness in the workplace is. Clearly this is not just a passing fad, but an issue of growing concern that is calling for immediate attention and action. Employees and companies as a whole are responding very positively to wellness incentives and fitness programs. Hopefully some of these stories will inspire you to instill a wellness initiative at your company – or at least change a few habits to benefit your own life.

To begin, an article in EXPERIENCE LIFE magazine (a publication of LIFE TIME FITNESS) titled “Healthy Profit” makes the case for employee wellness as a means for increasing productivity and reaping fiscal benefits. The article centers on three US companies – SAS, Patagonia and Hypertherm – that are putting the well-being of their employees first and rewarded handsomely in the form of low employee turnover and decreased medical plan costs.

The article points to a study published in the February 2012 issue of Health Affairs that found that “for every dollar invested in a comprehensive workplace wellness program, companies saved $3.27 in medical costs and $2.73 in costs related to absenteeism.” According to “Healthy Profits,”

…the days of simply tacking up a smoking-cessation poster and calling it a wellness program are quickly coming to an end. In a world of ballooning healthcare costs and exhausted employees, more businesses are adopting comprehensive workplace wellness programs that pay closer attention not just to the physical health of their workforces, but also to their employees’ overall sense of well-being.

A few examples of the initiatives these companies have adopted include onsite daycare, onsite health centers, subsidized healthy lunch programs, paid leave for parents of sick children, free yoga, paid time off to volunteer, wellness fairs and fitness club membership reimbursement. We’ll note that these companies are exceptional examples and not every organization is able to adopt all of these initiatives; however, making small changes now will go a long way with regard to your employees’ well-being.

The September/October issue of Premium Incentive Products also features a case study focused on employee wellness, titled “Working Toward Wellness at Hilton Head Health.” According to the article, Hilton Head Health, or H3, is a premiere health and wellness center in Hilton Head, SC.

When H3 implemented a physical fitness support system, “The benefits were immediate,” says president and CEO Robert Moore. “The first year was a 3 percent reduction in premiums, and the second year a 7 percent reduction at a time when premiums were increasing 12 to 15 percent.

In order to be effective, of course, a program such as this has to be widely accepted by the staff, and H3 is a great example of a program not only being widely accepted but successfully implemented and expanding, as well. “While H3 employees might know more about fitness and be healthier than the average worker, it also proved to be a challenge to increase the level of H3’s employees’ fitness. Enter the idea of incentives, challenges, classes and a little friendly competition to get the ball rolling.”

At H3, each activity is based on a point system.  A highly visible leader board is updated with top performers’ names and points awarded and employees are encouraged to compete not only with each other, but with themselves. Completing fitness classes, competing in races and taking healthy cooking classes are all eligible for points. Other types of activities include book club, volunteering, webinars, biking, swimming and walking. This shows that not only is H3 concerned with wellness, but the overall well-being of its employees.

As quoted in the article, CEO Moore says, “I’m a believer in incentives. You have to get people to try living healthier lives, then they develop the habit and they won’t want to give it up. There is no better way to do that with incentives.”

As a recognition company with our own wellness initiative, we couldn’t have said it better ourselves. And especially with the holiday season quickly approaching, what better way to fend off cold and flu season than by adopting some of these wellness principles now!

Your Monthly Check-Up: The State of Corporate Wellness Programs in America

Please check out this infographic from Compliance and Safety, a vendor of safety videos. The graphic outlines some interesting statistics about workplace wellness initiatives and the growing importance of educating your employees about exercise and nutrition.

Your Monthly Check-Up: The Results are in!

Your Monthly Check-Up: An Increase in Health Insurance Costs Could Mean an Increase in Employee Wellness Programs

According to a new survey by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH), the costs of employer-provided health care is anticipated to go up 7 percent in 2013, prompting employers to consider different cost-control measures, including upping rewards for employees who commit to healthy lifestyles.

The NBGH surveyed 342 businesses with regard to their views on providing health care coverage to their employees and found that an increasing number of employees are in favor of wellness programs in the workplace, which could bode well for decreasing employers’ insurance costs over time if implemented successfully.

A full 19 percent of the employers surveyed consider wellness programs that incentivize employees to improve their overall health to be a strong cost-control option, as reported by Employee Benefit News. While 48 percent use incentives to encourage participation in general, some incentivize based on specific outcomes, such as smoking cessation and curbing BMI or cholesterol levels.

What’s more, the survey found that employers plan to drastically increase the incentive amount for participating in a wellness program or committing to a healthy lifestyle. The benefit to the employee is twofold – good health and great incentives for maintaining it – while employers get the reduction in insurance costs that will allow them to spend the money saved to improve other areas of the business.

Read more on this topic here and here.