Employee Wellness Newsletter

Support from upper-level management is essential to building a successful wellness program! Visible upper-level management support is one of the most critical factors in the success of a workplace Health Promotion Program.

Senior management executives are responsible for making sure that the corporation meets its objectives. They can provide additional assistance by assisting you to link your Health Promotion Program objectives to corporation outcomes, thereby positioning Health Promotion Program as a fundamental part of the corporation.

It is important to develop support and excitement for the wellness program from all levels of the company including senior management, mid-level management, and grass-root staff.

The challenge for any Health Promotion Program coordinator is convincing executive management about the potential value of Health Promotion Program to the corporation and conceptualizing how wellness programs can impact the corporation in a meaningful manner.

The American Journal of Wellness is a great resource to assist you with obtaining convincing information on the advantages of a Wellness Program.

Health Promotion Program support from executive management can come in many different ways -

o  Involvement in the planning process

o  Distribution of funding for the wellness program

o  Support for time given to the wellness program

o  Participation in wellness events

o  Leadership by management, like the distribution of a letter of support for the health promotion program.

o  Download a sample letter requesting senior management support. (http – //www.ibx.com/pdfs/custom/worksite_wellness/employer_tools/sr_mgt_support.doc)

o  Flexibility of staff member schedules to accommodate wellness activities

The first step in developing your wellness/Health Promotion Program is to understand your corporation and how Health Promotion Program will fit into the current structure.

By researching your company’s history with similar wellness programs and eliciting feedback from coworkers, you are able to find the best solution for your organization.

Health Promotion Program –  Research Questions

o  Find out when Wellness Program has been done in the past. If so, what worked and what did not?

o  Was it widely accepted?

o  Was health promotion programming successful? Why or why not?

o  What does your organization hope to gain from starting a Health Promotion Program?

Answers to these questions will help you start the process of building a culture of wellness within your corporation. It’s imperative that you assess the environment before beginning a wellness program.

The costs of healthcare have been rising more than 10% annually for several years. A substantial amount of the money spent in the healthcare system treats expensive diseases and diseases.

o  Approximately 95 percent of the $1.4 trillion that we spend as a nation on health goes to direct medical services, while about 5 percent is allocated to preventing disease and promoting health.

o  Potentially, 50 percent to 70 percent of all illnesses are preventable as they are associated with modifiable health risks.

o  In an effort to optimize employee health, reduce avoidable healthcare utilization and enhance work performance, and in turn lower healthcare costs and improve employee satisfaction and retention, many businesses are developing, or are interested in developing, Wellness Programs for personnel.

The benefits of corporate health promotion are well documented. Greater than 120 research repeatedly show themes such as improvements in health outcomes coupled with high Return On Investment (ROI). Some major findings include the following -

o  Savings of $3.48 in reduced health care costs per dollar invested.

o  Savings of $5.82 in decrease absenteeism costs per dollar invested.

o  ROIs of at least $3 to $8 per dollar invested within five years of wellness program implementation.

o  Lifestyle behavior change programs –  $3 to $6 Return On Investment (ROI) within 2 to 5 years.

o  Self care, decision support health promotion programs –  $2 to $3 Return On Investment within a year.

o  Illness management programs –  $7 to $10 Return On Investment (ROI) within a year.

By offering wellness programs, corporations aren’t only providing an additional service for employees, but they’re also gaining financially. Moreover, the impact of a wellness program goes beyond lowered health care cost and ROI.

A wellness program can affect productivity, absenteeism, morale, recruitment success, turnover, and medical care costs.

* Source –  Rees, C., and Finch, R. (2004). Health Improvement –  A robust guide to designing, beginning and reviewing health promotion programs. National Business Group on Health, 1 (1), 1-7.

As reported by the American Journal of Wellness, “Wellness is the science and art of assisting individuals  change their lifestyle to move toward a state of optimal health.

Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle change may be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, change behavior, and develop environments that support good health practices.

Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing lasting change.”

Wellness Program –  Action Steps

The process of building a Wellness Program involves -

o  Identifying the current health status of your personnel

o  Determiningthe appropriate health promotion programs and interventions to offer

o  Advertising and beginning the health promotion programs

o  Building in motivational incentives

o  Evaluating the impact

o  Revising health promotion programs based on analysis outcomes

It may even include developing policies and procedures that support staff member participation in wellness activities at your worksite (like flextime).

Steps to Beginning a Health Promotion Program

o  Conduct an organizational assessment

o  Get senior level management support

o  Establish a wellness committee

o  Get staff member input

o  Create objectives and objectives

o  Design and implement health promotion program activities

o  Choose incentives

o  Assess outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to enhance the nation’s health is through extensive Health Promotion Programs.

As reported by the USA Department of Health and Human Services, these health promotion programs might help employees live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior change programs.

In fact, one of the goals of Healthful Individuals  2010, a set of health goals for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to raise the proportion of staff members that participate in a extensive Health Promotion Program at their worksite to 75 percent.

5 Ways to Assess and Improve Your Employees’ Health

Emotional health is a state of wellness that comes from understanding and acknowledging our emotions and finding appropriate ways to express them.

As personnel, we often bring emotional problems from our childhood or current family life into the workplace because we have not dealt with them effectively outside of work.

This can seriously damage worksite relationships and lead to poor performance and negative feelings all around.

Many tools and techniques exist for helping us improve 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, don’t hesitate to seek out a licensed expert. Health promotion programs generally have expert support already in place as part of their services.

1. Health Coaching -

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 provided by employee assistance or health promotion programs, can provide an external source of strength and insight for “working out” emotionally-based problems instead of “working them in” to your job.

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 support of a colleague 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 benefit of tele-conference groups and social web sites, such as sparkindividuals .com and revolutionhealth.com. Health promotion programs often have such groups available through web-based or telephone support. Progressive employee wellness provider

Exan Wellness, for example, offers teleconference cell groups and moderated wellness forums for interacting with others in a supportive, confidential and unknown 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 change together.

3. Journaling –  Journaling is often recommended by counsellors as a way to help identify and process emotions. People  record their emotions in writing as they experience them, in no matter what 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 individuals  to identify and process the emotions they feel about others.

The letter doesn’t have to be sent or its contents shared –  it simply provides 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’s 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’s missed over the years telling them how he felt. In conclusion, he’s a chance to say a proper goodbye.

4. Assess Your Emotional Health – Companies that seek to boost employees’ interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence in the workplace are more successful, according to ground-breaking journalist Daniel Goleman.

And emotional intelligence is the buzzword in workplaces these days. Some health promotion programs have information about emotional intelligence, or emotional health assessments. Seek out more information about emotional intelligence for better corporate health promotion.

5. Friendships/Support Systems –  Friendships allow people  to feel supported in their emotional journeys.  At the same time, they give people  an opportunity to develop their empathetic skills.

These skills are also important for worksite health. When we’re empathic with fellow staff members, we help them resolve negative or unhealthy emotions. New friendships are made through hobbies, classes, clubs, or even through online groups.

Many individuals  are locating emotional satisfaction by connecting or re-connecting with friends through Facebook and other social websites.

Sometimes workplace stress that is not dealt with in a healthy manner could be brought home. A 36-year-old mother of three, Sarah, wants to be a good wife, a good mother, and a success at her job.

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’s a failure at her job as well as at motherhood. She watches with jealousy as younger colleagues 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 does not 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% Jump in Company Interest in Staff Member Wellness

Company health promotion for their workers, businesss are discovering, is good for the health of their corporations as well. Health promotion programs help to cut the costs associated with poor staff member health, which include absenteeism, loss of productivity and poor work quality.

A recent Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 United States corporations indicated a meaningful paradigm shift in how corporations view health benefits for their workforce.

Of those surveyed this year, 88 percent are committed to instituting long-term health care assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their staff members, with the goal of improveing the health and productivity of their workforce. This represents a 25 percent increase in interest in wellness programs over 2007.

A strong offering of health promotion programs to meet the demand has resulted. Health assistance providers have broadened their health promotion programs with tools that address general lifestyle factors, physical, social and psychological health factors.

Programs look to predict chronic illness in their workforce and give them the tools and the information to prevent it. Businesses also demand a way to measure the effectiveness of their healthcare spending.

Self-care is our motive, says Vic Lebouthillier, president of progressive wellness provider Exan Wellness.”We really believe giving staff members tools to help them manage their own health, and promoting the benefits, while giving individuals  resources to reach out for help is the key to successful lifestyle change.

Companies are also telling us they need a cost-effective way to deliver wellness programs.  The type of wellness program we have developed over years delivers the highest health care return on investment.”

Combining company health promotion promotions, online assessments and health trackers, online health information, telephone conferences and self-help groups, and access to a wide variety of health experts, is behind the success of the Exan health promotion program. “Having online statistics about employees’ health also makes it easier to track the bottom line – ROI” says Vic Lebouthillier.

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

Notwithstanding, in a separate survey of 30,000 workers, 74 percent said that, although they felt their corporation had an obligation to help them understand how to use their health benefits program, only 12 percent felt the corporation 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 staff as well as the business. It’s a win-win situation.

Employers and personnel did find common ground when it came to future healthcare. Both surveys indicate that 95% of personnel understand that their taking care of their health today will impact future healthcare payments.

A similar percentage also understand the important of early detection and prevention when it comes to saving on health care costs.

Cost is important for most corporations as well. Over 80 percent of those surveyed made cost mitigation a priority for 2008, but those cuts did not involve shifting responsibility for health care onto personnel.

Although 64% of companies have shifted costs to their staff, only 17% plan to do so in the next 3-5 years. Likewise with health reimbursement accounts, 20% now offer these, but only about 5% plan to use them in 2008.

These survey causesdicate organizations are getting more proactive in helping their personnel to change behaviors and take ownership of their own health futures. This is clearly good for the well-being of personnel, but also for the well-being of the organizations they work for.

Almost half the companies surveyed were convinced that changing health behaviors was key to increased productivity and lower absentee rates. Over 60% plan to institute wellness programs that help staff change 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’s clear to virtually every American (namely those of us in business) that healthcare costs are skyrocketing out of control.

No one doubts that either the market will solve the problem OR the government will impose one on us. Managed care has failed from either a cost containment or quality of care perspective.

Organizations have reached the point where the cost of providing health insurance is nearly as burdensome as government regulation. It is time for some new thinking on healthcare and its impact on business and vice versa.

Company wellness as an operational perspective instead of merely window dressing is one way to deal effectively with rising healthcare costs.

The Insurance Problem

The first step in correcting the problem is to realize that an employee’s health is their own responsibility. Expecting employers to provide unlimited medical insurance coverage is simply unrealistic and unreasonable.

It’s time for businesss (on a broad scale) to reconsider their role in providing health insurance coverage. Instead of providing complete coverage for all staff through group plans, businesses should begin to shift the burden of health coverage to those covered.

Here’s the approach. Give catastrophic medical insurance as a group benefit to all staff members with a big enough deductible (say $5000 per employee) to make the cost inexpensive for the business.

Then, allow staff to buy their own health insurance policies (based on their own needs) and pay for them through payroll deduction with pre-tax earnings.

There are numerous insurance businesses that sell individual plans on this basis. Everyone wins. Staff Members can tailor their coverage to their own needs and circumstances using their own doctors. Businesses win by stopping the endless cycle of rising costs and ever-changing plans.

And when person become responsible for the cost of their own insurance, they become more attentive to their own health.

Besides, when an staff member is interested in working for you ONLY because your organization offers excellent insurance benefits aren’t they telling you they are going to cost you more money in the future?

Develop a “Health Promotion Culture”

Our current “sickness culture” perpetuates the health care crisis and hastens the demise of market-based solutions. By ailment culture, I mean our focus on medical problems in lieu of on having a healthful workplace and performance culture.

Now, what would a “wellness culture” look like? First, in lieu of paid sick days, employees might  be rewarded at year’s end with an attendance bonus.

Staff Members would be reimbursed for successful completion of use of tobacco cessation and weight-loss programs. Corporations would invest in corporate memberships at local health clubs so every employee can participate.

Employees would be offered in-house wellness programs on a variety of issues ranging from ergonomics to stress management. Lastly, organizations would commit to hiring and retaining healthful workers.

Simply put, healthful employees cost less and are more productive than unhealthful ones. Applicants must be screened for health habits and practices that limit their productivity and increase the likelihood of future expense.

While this might seem harsh, it rewards those workers whose personal lifestyle and habits ensure the best Return on Investment by the corporation committing to hire, train and pay them.

Be open to “alternative and complementary” approaches

Studies published in major medical journals reveal that individuals who use “alternative and complementary” health modalities (including chiropractic, acupuncture, yoga and massage) are ordinarily healthier, better educated, take fewer medications and miss fewer days from work than the average American.

Since these person look for ways to stay healthy without drugs and surgery, they end up being a net benefit respecting attendance and productivity. Old prejudices in this area should be discarded in order for businesses to improve productivity and increase profitability

Conclusion

Healthcare costs are increasing at a staggering pace. Managed care is an terrible failure. Corporations are buckling beneath the pressure of providing health coverage to their staff members.

American competitiveness in the market is sagging. These times call for amazing solutions. It’s time for American companies to consider some out-of-the-box solutions to the healthcare crisis.

Company wellness is an approach that is timely, achievable and reasonable given the alternatives. All options should be considered while we still have a chance.

Research spanning more than a decade has consistently shown wellness programs to be financially effective and that every dollar invested on a wellness program can return $2.30 and $10.10 by decreasing absenteeism, sick day usage and by lowering insurance costs.

Also it’s noted that there are marked improvements in worker performance and productivity in organizations that start a health promotion program.

Healthful businesses enjoy increased staff member morale and an improved ability to attract and retain key people . Likewise, staff are more alert and productive.

For example, Coca Cola reports that they save close to $500 a year per employee once they implemented a workout program in which 60 percent of their workforce participate.

Coors Brewing Company reported that staff who participated in their wellness programs lowered their absentee rate by 18 percent.

Staff Members enjoy their share of benefits from wellness programs too. A healthy lifestyle affects every part of a person’s life, including their work environment.

Health promotion programs lead to fewer injuries, less human error and a work environment that is more harmonious and relaxed. Also, workers who work at a organization that starts a health promotion program know that their organization is concerned about their wellness.

Workers often report a reduction in their stress levels because of wellness programs.

As personnel feel better, more relaxed, more valued and more human to their company; they enjoy an increase in productivity. This increase in productivity, while advantageous to the corporation, is also essential to the staff member as it increases their own sense of self worth and confidence levels.

Employees who feel successful and who feel that they accomplish objectives are overall happier and in a better frame of mind.

The benefits of wellness programs, both tangible and intangible, are evident. It is a wise move for a company to start a wellness program, in particular when they incorporate some form of mental health aspect into it.

This also has social benefits as domestic violence and child abuse is shown to be reduced in areas where wellness programs are implemented. These days, an organization can almost not afford to have some sort of wellness program to offer to their personnel.

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

Health Risk Assessments (HRAs)

Health Risk Assessment (HRA) is a top wellness program currently in use globally. Organizations that implement it determine the safety and health concerns of employees by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the employees.

It can, for instance, guide the business into deciding how the air quality within an office room affects the users and then help the assessment team to come up with the measures necessary to correct the problem.  An Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) can also evaluate the level of exposure employees have to certain dangerous 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. However, it’s also become an important component of the top staff member health promotion programs in many organizations in North America.

Immunization shots, such as those used to combat flu, for instance, are offered to personnel for free.

Employee Assistance Programs

Employee Assistance Programs consist of a wide variety of services. It can range from providing educational resources to workers regarding health issues to sponsoring health services and medical care. In many corporations, medical and insurance have also become a staple part of their benefits system.

In-house diet and nutrition drives

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

In-house wellness newsletter and campaign drives

One of the top health promotion programs that organizations can begin 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 tobacco use hazards, cancer, stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, safety in the workplace, etc.

The newsletter in itself may be an effective means to deliver information to workforce or members of an organization but it is far from perfect.

Some staff, for instance, may not peruse the newsletter entirely or even pay attention to it. When the issues outlined in the newsletter are promoted through an active and highly visible campaign, it’ll be easier to maximize positive results.

Exercise and Physical Activity

Another top wellness program for corporations is one that involves physical activities. Corporations often sponsor exercise-related events like marathons and business sports programs to encourage staff to remain fit or lose excess weight.

In mid- to large-sized companies, companies might even pay for health club memberships or in-house exercise facilities.

Wellness Incentives

Some of the top wellness programs implemented by businesses involve incentive rewards. This involves company-sponsored wellness programs that reward workers for achieving specific wellness-related goals.

Participation in health campaigns and signing up for health promotion programs are two of the most widely rewarded schemes. Rewards can range from special recognitions to over time acquired points (for bigger rewards) to specific gifts. In a few cases, cash might also be used.

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

Coworker Pressure

In many corporations, corporations take benefit of coworker pressure to encourage staff members to take part in health promotion programs. This is currently among the favorite worker health promotion programs currently in use today and growing in popularity.

Peer pressure is usually leveraged to help promote competitions referring to company health promotion and to persuade workforce to be active in company-sponsored health fairs.

Wellness is a great concept. It brings happiness into health and encourages a truly holistic approach to life. Wikipedia defines wellness as a healthful balance of the mind-body and spirit that causes an overall feeling of wellness.

It sounds like exactly what every one is looking for. But when you start to talk about corporate health promotion, or corporate health promotion, all life goes out of the concept. Total solutions, disease management and medical screening do not inspire visions of enjoying life and living it to the full.

They start from the assumption that ailment 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 corporations – individuals  working from home or in small centers selling all types 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’re 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 organizations have been largely forced to take on wellness. This is partly through legislative pressure, with many countries introducing laws to make organizations liable for stress-related illness in their employees.

It’s also financially motivated, as research has repeatedly shown the immense costs of absenteeism (and increasingly of presenteeism as well).

Whereas the baby boomers are actively looking for new solutions and new life choices the organizations are struggling to organize largely traditional and mainstream health systems, like physicians, nurses, insurance and screening systems.

The problem is that the traditional health system doesn’t have solutions for the problems that individuals  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 many stress-related health problems are described as chronic conditions, which means that they last for a very long time – or maybe for the rest of your life – because there is no medical cure.

Counseling is a common offering in companies for emotional problems, but whilst it may provide a useful pressure valve it isn’t a powerful treatment for stress, unhappiness or depression.

Imagine walking into a business where the workforce are happy, healthy, full of inspiration, fit, love working, have meaningful family lives, active social lives, and enjoyable relationships at work and in their community.

That type of company would be a pleasure to work in and bound to be successful because individuals  would be working to their optimum capacity.

So can we create a system of true wellness that will serve the development of the organizations and their personnel and will pay for itself because of the benefits 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’d all be much more well. So we need to look elsewhere for solutions.

We also cannot rely on makeshift feel-good wellness offerings, like the on-site 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 easy to organize but have little or no real effect on worker health promotion.

Corporate needs are different than individual needs and many of the new small wellness organizations that are springing up simply do not have the capacity to serve the corporate market.

Nonetheless it’s in the best interest of both organizations and staff to find and create systems of wellness that really work – that benefit individuals  to be happy, handle stress, love working, and to have enough energy to go home after 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 elevate the vision and figure out how to make in fact healthful, happy worksites where people  thrive.