Category — Wellness Plans

As reported by the American Journal of Wellness, “Health Promotion is the science and art of helping people  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 could be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, change behavior, and create 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 Health Promotion Program involves –

• Identifying the current health status of your staff members

• Decidingthe appropriate health promotion programs and interventions to offer

• Promoting and implementing the wellness programs

• Building in motivational incentives

• Measuring the impact

• Revising health promotion programs based on analysis outcomes

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

Steps to Beginning a Wellness Program

• Conduct an organizational assessment

• Get upper management support

• Launch a wellness committee

• Get worker input

• Develop objectives and objectives

• Create and implement health promotion program activities

• Choose incentives

• Evaluate outcomes

Among the ways the government plans to improve the nation’s health is through extensive Health Promotion Programs.

According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these health promotion programs may help personnel live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior change programs.

In fact, among the objectives of Healthy Individuals  2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to elevate the proportion of staff that participate in a extensive Wellness Program at their workplace 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 locating appropriate ways to express them.

As staff members, we often bring emotional problems from our childhood or current family life into the worksite 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.

A lot of tools and techniques exist for assisting us improve our emotional health. Some of the most common are given below, with real-life case histories illustrating their use.

When an unpleasant mood or feeling persists over a length of time, do not hesitate to seek out a licensed expert. Wellness programs typically have expert support already in place as part of their services.

1. Wellness Coaching –

Among the hallmarks of emotional health is the willingness to ask for help when we need it.

Confidential expert 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 individuals  in emotional situations in which they feel alone.  The purpose of these groups is twofold –  to allow individuals  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.

Individuals  are taking benefit of tele-conference groups and social websites, such as sparkindividuals .com and revolutionhealth.com. Health promotion programs often have such groups available through web-based or telephone support. Progressive company health promotion provider

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

Individuals  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. Individuals  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 people  to identify and process the emotions they feel in relation to 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’d 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. Lastly, he has a chance to say a proper goodbye.

4. Assess Your Emotional Health – Businesses that seek to increase employees’ interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence in the worksite are more successful, as reported by 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 individuals  to feel supported in their emotional journeys.  At the same time, they give individuals  an opportunity to develop their empathetic skills.

These skills are also important for workplace health. When we are empathic with fellow staff, we help them resolve negative or unhealthy emotions. New friendships are made through hobbies, classes, clubs, or even through web-based groups.

A lot of people  are locating emotional satisfaction by connecting or re-connecting with friends through Facebook and other social websites.

Sometimes worksite stress that is not dealt with in a healthful manner can 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 kids and threatened to hit her youngest son. Her behavior horrified her.  To make matters worse, she believes she is a failure at her job in addition to at motherhood. She watches with jealousy as younger peers 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 had not considered before.

25% Jump in Company Interest in Worker Wellness

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

A recent Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 USA organizations indicated a significant paradigm shift in how organizations view health benefits for their workers.

Of those surveyed this year, 88 percent are committed to instituting long-term healthcare assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their workforce, 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 condition in their workforce and give them the tools and the information to prevent it. Organizations 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 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 successful lifestyle change.

Corporations are also telling us they need a cost-effective way to deliver health promotion programs.  The type of health promotion program we’ve created over years delivers the highest health care return on investment.”

Combining corporate health promotion promotions, web-based assessments and health trackers, web-based health information, telephone conferences and self-help groups, and access to a broad variety of health professionals, is behind the success of the Exan health promotion program. “Having web-based statistics about employees’ health also makes it easier to track the bottom line – Return On Investment” says Vic Lebouthillier.

Businesses are moving beyond their traditional role as a provider of healthcare benefits to develop holistic health promotion programs that pinpoint the specific health needs of their staff member populations, drive staff member 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 staff, 74 percent said that, although they felt their business had an obligation to help them understand 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, employers need to drive home the fact that improved health is better for their staff as well as the organization. It’s a win-win situation.

Corporations and staff members did find common ground when it came to future health care. Both surveys indicate that 95 percent of staff members understand that their taking care of their health today will impact future health care payments.

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

Cost is important 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 health care onto staff.

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

These survey results indicate companies are getting more proactive in helping their staff to change behaviors and take ownership of their own health futures. This is clearly good for the wellness of staff, but also for the wellness of the companies 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 percent plan to institute health promotion programs that help workers change and/or sustain a healthier lifestyle.

Almost of these companies will also use data and measurements to ensure their health care strategies meet their health care objectives?

It is clear to virtually every American (specifically those of us in business) that health care 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 medical insurance is almost as burdensome as government regulation. It is time for some new thinking on healthcare and its impact on corporation and vice versa.

Corporate wellness as an operational perspective in lieu 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 medical insurance coverage. Instead of providing complete coverage for all workforce through group plans, organizations should begin to shift the burden of health coverage to those covered.

Here’s the approach. Provide catastrophic health insurance as a group benefit to all staff members with a large enough deductible (say $5000 per employee) to make the cost inexpensive for the corporation.

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

There are numerous insurance companies 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. Companies win by stopping the endless cycle of rising costs and ever-changing plans.

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

Besides, if an worker is interested in working for you ONLY because your business offers excellent insurance benefits are not they telling you they are going to cost you more money in the future?

Create 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 instead of on having a healthy worksite and performance culture.

So, what’d a “wellness culture” look like? First, in lieu of compensated sick days, staff members could  be rewarded at year’s end with an attendance bonus.

Staff Members would be reimbursed for successful completion of tobacco use cessation and weight-loss programs. Corporations would invest in corporate memberships at local gyms so every worker 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 personnel.

Simply put, healthful personnel cost less and are more productive than unhealthful ones. Applicants should 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 workforce whose personal lifestyle and habits ensure the best Return on Investment by the organization 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 for attendance and productivity. Old prejudices in this area must be discarded in order for organizations to improve productivity and increase profitability

Conclusion

Healthcare costs are increasing at a staggering pace. Managed care is an abysmal failure. Corporations are buckling below the pressure of providing health coverage to their workers.

American competitiveness in the market is sagging. These times call for incredible solutions. It’s time for American businesses to consider some out-of-the-box solutions to the health care crisis.

Employee health promotion is an approach that is timely, achievable and reasonable given the alternatives. All choices must be considered while we still have a chance.

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

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

Healthful organizations enjoy increased staff member morale and an improved ability to attract and retain key individuals . In addition, workers are more alert and productive.

For  instance, Coca Cola reports that they save an estimated $500 a year per staff member once they implemented a workout plan in which 60% of their employees participate.

Coors Brewing Corporation announced that personnel who participated in their health promotion programs lowered their absentee rate by 18 percent.

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

Wellness programs lead to fewer injuries, less human error and a work environment that is more harmonious and relaxed. In addition, staff who work at a organization that starts a wellness program know that their organization is concerned about their wellness.

Workers often report a reduction in their stress levels due to health promotion programs.

As workforce 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 organization, is also essential to the employee 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 organization to begin a wellness program, in particular when they incorporate some form of psychological health aspect into it.

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

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

Health Risk Assessments (HRAs)

HRA is a top wellness program currently in use globally. Organizations that start it determine the safety and health concerns of personnel by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the personnel.

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 team to come up with the measures necessary to correct the problem.  An HRA can also evaluate the level of exposure staff have to certain perilous or perilous materials and practices.

Immunizations

This is not always practiced in every country since there are regions where government sponsored immunization shots are available. Nevertheless, it’s also become an important component of the top staff member wellness programs in many corporations in North America.

Immunization shots, like those used to combat flu, for instance, are offered to staff for free.

Staff Member Assistance Programs

Staff Member Assistance Programs consist of a broad variety of services. It can range from providing educational resources to workforce regarding health issues to sponsoring health services and medical care. In many companies, 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 businesses use, specifically those that offer in-house commissary or cafeteria services. Instead of serving richer, high-calorie fare, cafeterias offer choices for a healthier diet, generally in the form of low-calorie foods and sugar substitutes.

In-house wellness newsletter and campaign drives

Among the top wellness programs that organizations can start is a self-powered tool using a newsletter to promote wellness, coupled with a visible campaign.

The campaign could  be done periodically and focus on a specific topic, like use of tobacco hazards, cancer, stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, safety in the workplace, etc.

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

Some staff, for instance, 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’ll be easier to maximize positive results.

Exercise and Physical Fitness

Another top health promotion program for businesses is one that involves physical activities. Companies often sponsor exercise-related events such as marathons and corporation sports programs to encourage staff to remain fit or lose excess weight.

In mid- to large-sized corporations, corporations might even pay for gym memberships or in-house exercise facilities.

Wellness Incentives

Some of the top health promotion programs implemented by organizations involve incentive rewards. This involves company-sponsored health promotion programs that reward staff 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 larger rewards) to specific gifts. In several 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 for fit their unique needs.

Coworker Pressure

In many corporations, corporations take benefit of colleague pressure to encourage staff to take part in wellness programs. This is currently among the favorite staff member wellness programs currently in use today and growing in popularity.

Coworker pressure is often leveraged to help promote competitions referring to employee wellness and to persuade personnel to be active in company-sponsored health fairs.

Health Promotion is a great concept. It brings happiness into health and encourages a indeed holistic approach to life. Wikipedia defines wellness as a healthy balance of the mind-body and spirit that causes an overall feeling of well-being.

It sounds like exactly what every one is looking for. But when you start to talk about employee wellness, or employee wellness, all life goes out of the concept. Total solutions, disease management (DM) 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. Health Promotion 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 – 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 contrary 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 businesses have been largely forced to take on wellness. This is partly through legislative pressure, with many countries introducing laws to make businesses liable for stress-related ailment in their staff members.

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

Whereas the baby boomers are actively looking for new solutions and new lifestyles the businesses 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 does not have solutions for the problems that people  are handling.

Nobody ever went to see a physician to get happy, because a physician does not have any clue how to make people  happy.  And many stress-related medical 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 could provide a useful pressure valve it isn’t a powerful treatment for stress, unhappiness or depression.

Imagine walking into a organization where the employees 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 kind of organization 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 corporations and their workers and will pay for itself because of the benefits that both sides will gain?

First of all we’ve 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, haven’t been solved by the current system.

When they’d 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 individuals  unaffected. They are easy to organize but have little or no real effect on employee health promotion.

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

Notwithstanding it is in the best interest of both organizations and staff members to find and develop systems of wellness that really work – that benefit people  to be happy, handle stress, love working, and to have enough 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 find out how to make in fact healthful, happy workplaces where individuals  thrive.

High rates of worker turnover and the costs of sick days are increasingly taking bites into corporate profits.  The high cost of recruitment programs only adds to the challenges that these problems in sum cost the average business.

A lot of corporations are locating the solution to these challenges by increasing job satisfaction, team building, and the implementation of wellness programs that yield a reduction in these costs.

It has become increasingly clear to most managers that a well designed health promotion program with a strong nutritional and fitness lifestyle emphasis will directly meet this need.

Management’s objectives for a productive health promotion program should be viewed through the perspective of increased staff member productivity, decreased absenteeism due to health related causes, improved staff member morale, decreased utilisation of company subsidised health benefits, enhanced team cohesion and effectiveness and a decrease in turnover due to lack of job satisfaction.

It is apparent that an betterment in any of these areas will have a positive impact on the financial status of any organisation.

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

To be most productive a health promotion program needs to achieve both managements and staff members goals, and this can be accomplished through a health promotion program that’ll provide the individual employee with an awareness of their current physical condition and attitudes to fitness and wellness, and the advantages of attaining a fitter, healthier lifestyle, and a plan that’ll allow them to achieve the necessary changes to their physical condition that can be applied of their life and work.

The Bottom Line – Health Promotion Programs

Reduced Absenteeism – Dupont reduced absenteeism by 47.5 percent over six years for the participants of their employee exercise program, (Health Behaviour, March 1992).

Reduced Healthcare Costs – Steel case showed a reduction in medical claim costs of 55 percent for staff exercise initiative participants over non-participants over a six year period – an average of $478.61 for participants versus non-participants who averaged $868.88, (The Am. Journal of Wellness, Sept/Oct, 1991).

Decreased Turnover – Turnover among fitness program participants at the Canadian Life Assurance Business was 32.4 percent 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 found that its corporate exercise initiative had a 250 percent return on investment; $2.51 for every $1 invested over a five year period (American Journal of Wellness, March, April, 1991).

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to encourage Fortune 1000 companies to consider making workforce health a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) issue and adopt strategies to promote prevention and wellness.

After a few years of double-digit rate increases for health insurance, corporations are realizing that one of the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have staff take more responsibility for both costs and health options.

A majority of companies surveyed feel that the best way for decling costs is financial incentives to encourage employees to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Nearly 100 percent of corporations surveyed say that medical costs will be a vital or meaningful concern over the next five years, according to a recent survey by United Benefit Advisors.

More employers are adopting higher deductible healthcare programs with HRA’s or HSA’S, health promotion programs, and expanded disease management (DM) programs for control ever-increasing healthcare costs.

Failure to deal with these issues can be disastrous for an employer. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Alegent Health recently stated, “I think that we’ve built a health care 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 costs are becoming the major economic issue in our nation”. Obesity costs California companies billions of dollars each year.

Projected costs for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect medical costs, staff member’s compensation, and lost productivity. California has experienced among 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’s an economic crisis.” What’s frightening is that most individuals don’t even realize that they’re obese, which is defined as only 20% above normal weight.

There is a excellent need for more education on weight and resulting illnesses, and the worksite is an ideal venue. Health Promotion education and programs can lead to a significant return on investment and, when structured properly, can produce causes a very short period of time.

Despite the fact that many businesss have attempted some form of health promotion program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing.

In many cases, the healthier personnel participated for incentives, such as fitness club memberships, but those who needed it most did not take advantage of the health promotion program in a meaningful way.

Businesses are looking at ways to encourage more workforce to buy into the wellness movement.

A recent webinar hosted by Human Resource (HR) Executive Magazine and presented by Carlson Marketing and Advertising Group titled, “Healthier Employees; Healthier Bottom Line –  Engaging Employees is the Missing Link in Managing Health Care Costs,” drove this point home.

This session provided actionable advice on how organizations are achieving higher impact with their wellness investments by focusing on staff member engagement. It also highlighted how you can create an Economic Engagement Model to forecast the potential impact for your corporation.

Employers can simply no longer ignore the issue of their worker’s unhealthy life choices and must take action to engage them in a meaningful health promotion program to reduce health costs, absenteeism and lost productivity.

Employees also benefit as they derive better health and greater satisfaction in both their personal and expert lives.  The alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the business.

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

Nutrition Category

• Low-fat campaign/food groups

• Team salad bars

• Vending machine changes

• Diet analysis by a nutritionist

• Produce on parade

• Consuming 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-select equipment talks

• Running maps

• Bicycling 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 seminars

• Time management seminars

• Relaxation class

• Better sleep campaign

• Relaxation room