Winston Salem WellnessWinston Salem Wellness – Winston Salem Health Promotion

Support from management is important to building a efficacious wellness program! Visible management backing is one of the most vital factors in the success of a workplace Worksite Wellness Program. Management executives are responsible for making sure that the company meets its objectives. They can support additional assistance by supporting you to link your Worksite Wellness Program objectives to company outcomes, thereby positioning Worksite Wellness Program as a fundamental part of the company.

It is important to create support and excitement for the program from all levels of the company including upper management, mid-level management, and grass-root workers.

The challenge for any Company Wellness Program coordinator is convincing management about the potential value of Company Wellness Program to the organization and conceptualizing how Company Wellness Program pushes can influence the organization in a meaningful manner. The American Journal of Health Promotion is a great resource to support you with obtaining convincing information on the benefits of a Company Wellness Program.

Employee Health Promotion Program backing from management can come in a myriad of different ways:

• Involvement in the wellness program planning process
• Distribution of funding for the wellness program
• Support for time given to the wellness program
• Participation in wellness activities
• Administration by management, such as the distribution of a letter of reinforcement for the program.
• Flexibility of employee schedules to accommodate wellness activities

The first step in planning your wellness/Employee Health Promotion Program is to know your company and how Employee Health Promotion Program will fit into the current structure. By researching your organization’s history with similar programs and eliciting feedback from co-staff members, you can discover the best solution for your company.

Corporate Health Promotion Program: Research Questions

• Find out if Employee Health Promotion Program has been done in the past. If so, what worked and what did not?
• Was it widely accepted?
• Was programming thriving? Why or why not?
• What does your employer hope to gain from launching a Company Wellness Program?

Answers to these questions will help you start the process of creating a culture of wellness within your corporation. It is imperative that you assess the environment before starting a program.

The costs of medical care have been rising more than 10 percent each year for several years. A substantial amount of the money invested in the medical care system treats costly illnesses and diseases.

• Approximately 95 percent of the $1.4 trillion that we spend as a nation on health goes to direct medical care services, while about 5 percent is allocated to preventing disease and promoting health.
• Potentially, 50 percent to 70 percent of all diseases are preventable as they are associated with potentially-modifiable health risks.
• In an effort to optimize employee health, reduce avoidable medical care utilization and enhance work achievement, and in turn decreased medical care expenditures and better employee satisfaction and retention, many organizations are beginning, or are interested in beginning, Worksite Health Promotion Programs for workers.

The advantages of workplace wellness are well documented. Greater than 120 research studies repeatedly show themes such as improvements in health outcomes coupled with high returns on investment (ROI). Some major findings include the following:

• Savings of $3.48 in reduced healthcare costs per dollar invested.
• Savings of $5.82 in cut absenteeism costs per dollar invested.
• ROIs of at least $3 to $8 per dollar invested within five years of program implementation.
• Lifestyle behavior modification programs: $3 to $6 ROI within 2 to 5 years.
• Self care, decision reinforcement programs: $2 to $3 ROI within a year.
• Disease Management (DM) programs: $7 to $10 return on investment within a year.

By offering health improvement programs, corporations are not only providing an additional service for employees, but they are also gaining monetarily. Furthermore, the impact of a health improvement program goes beyond lowered healthcare cost and return on investment. A health improvement program can affect productiveness, absenteeism, morale, recruitment success, turnover, and healthcare expenditures.

• Source: Rees, C., and Finch, R. (2004). Health Improvement: A comprehensive guide to designing, launching and evaluating workplace programs. National Business Group on Health, 1 (1), 1-7.

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people alter 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, alter behavior, and set up environments that support good health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing lasting change.”

Corporate Wellness Program: Action Steps

The process of creating a Worksite Wellness Program involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your workers
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and launching the programs
• Building in motivational incentives/rewards
• Measuring the impact
• Revising programs based on assessment outcomes

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

Steps to Starting a Workplace Health Promotion Program

• Conduct an company assessment
• Get senior staff reinforcement
• Establish a Corporate Health Promotion Program Committee
• Get employee input
• Design objectives and goals
• Design and enable program activities
• Choose incentives
• Evaluate outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to improve the nation’s health is through accross the board Company Health Promotion 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 change programs. In fact, one of the objectives and goals of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to stimulate the proportion of workers that take part in a accross the board Company Health Promotion Program at their worksite to 75 percent.

5 Ways to Review 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 frequently bring emotional concerns 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 achievement and detrimental 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. Corporate 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 provided by employee assistance or wellness programs, can offer an external source of strength and insight for “working out” emotionally-based problems 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 support of a peer group.

The classic self-help group is Alcoholics Anonymous, but thanks to technology, it’s possible to join 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. Worksite Health Promotion Programs often have such groups available through web-based or telephone 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 shift 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 does not have to be 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 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. Assess Your Emotional Health: Businesses that seek to boost employees’ interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence in the worksite are more thriving, according to ground-breaking journalist Daniel Goleman. And emotional intelligence is the buzzword in workplaces these days. Some Worksite Health Promotion 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 develop their empathetic skills. These skills are also important for workplace health. When we are empathic with fellow employees, we help them resolve detrimental or unhealthy emotions. New friendships are made through hobbies, classes, clubs, or even through online groups. Many people are finding emotional satisfaction by finding friends through Facebook and other social websites.

Occasionally 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 good wife, a good 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-workers 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-necessitated 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

Job Site wellness for their staff members, corporations are discovering, is wonderful for the health of their corporations as well. Corporate Health Promotion Programs help to cut the expenditures associated with poor employee health, which include absenteeism, loss of productiveness and poor work quality.

A new Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 U.S. businesses indicated a significant paradigm shift in how businesses view health benefits for their workers. Of those surveyed this year, 88% are committed to instituting long-term medical care assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their workers, with the goal of boosting the health and productivity of their workforce. This represents a 25% rise in interest in Workplace Wellness Programs over 2007.

A strong offering of Workplace Wellness 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 conditions in their employees and give them the tools and the information to prevent it. Corporations 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 employees tools to help them manage their own health, and promoting the advantages, while giving people resources to reach out for help is the key to successful lifestyle modification. Corporations are also telling us they need a cost-effective way to deliver Corporate Wellness Programs. The type of program we have developed over years delivers the highest medical return on investment.”

Combining worksite wellness promotions, internet based assessments and health trackers, internet 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 internet based statistics about staff members’ 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 programs that pinpoint the specific health needs of their employee populations, drive employee behavior change and eliminate barriers to healthcare,” says Jim Winkler, leader of Hewitt’s health management consulting practice.

Nonetheless, in a separate survey of 30,000 employees, 74% said that, although they felt their business had an obligation to help them know how to use their health benefits program, only 12% 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 employees as well as the business. It’s a win-win situation.

Employers and staff members did discover common ground when it came to future health care. Both surveys indicate that 95 percent of staff members be aware of that their taking care of their health today will impact future medical care payments. A similar percentage also be aware of the important of early detection and prevention when it comes to saving on medical care expenditures.

Cost is significant for most businesses 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 workers. Although 64 percent of businesses have transfered costs to their workers, only 17 percent intend  to do so in the next 3-5 years. Similarly with health reimbursement accounts, 20 percent now offer these, but only about 5 percent intend  to use them in 2008.

These survey results indicate organizations are getting more proactive in helping their staff members to shift behaviors and take ownership of their own health futures. This is obviously wonderful for the wellbeing of staff members, but also for the wellbeing of the organizations they work for. Almost half the organizations surveyed were convinced that changing health behaviors was key to better work rate and reduce absentee rates. Over 60 percent aim  to institute programs that help staff members change and/or sustain a healthier lifestyle. Almost of these organizations will also use data and measurements to make sure their medical care strategies meet their medical care objectives?

It is apparent to virtually every American (especially those of us in business) that health care expenditures 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. Organizations have reached the point where the cost of offering medical insurance is almost as burdensome as government regulation. It’s time for some new thinking on health care and its influence 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 expenditures.

The Insurance Delimma

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

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

Develop 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 issues rather than on having a healthy worksite and performance culture.

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

Be open to “alternative and complementary” approaches

Research studies published in major medical journals reveal that people 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 people look for ways to stay healthy without prescriptions and surgery, they end up being a net benefit in terms of attendance and work rate. Old prejudices in this area ought to be discarded in order for employers to better work rate and increase profitability

Conclusion

Healthcare costs are growing at a staggering pace. Managed care is an abysmal failure. Companies are buckling under the pressure of offering health coverage to their workers. American competitiveness in the market is sagging. These times call for extraordinary solutions. It’s time for American companies to consider some out-of-the-box solutions to the medical care 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 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 decreasing absenteeism, sick day usage and by lowering insurance costs. Additionally it is noted that there are marked improvements in employee success and productivity in companies that start a Worksite Health Promotion Program.

Healthy employers enjoy improved employee morale and an improved ability to attract and retain key people. Additionally, staff members are more alert and advantageous. For instance, Coca Cola reports that they save an estimated $500 a year per employee once they implemented a physical activity program in which 60% of their staff members take part. Coors Brewing Employer published that staff members who participated in their Workplace Wellness Programs reduced their absentee rate by 18%.

workers enjoy their share of benefits from Corporate Health Promotion Programs too. A healthy lifestyle impacts every part of a person’s life, including their work environment. Corporate Health Promotion Programs result in fewer injuries, less human error and a work environment that is more harmonious and relaxed. Additionally, workers who work at a organization that implements a Corporate Health Promotion Program know that their organization is concerned about their wellness and health. Workers often report a decline in their stress levels due to Corporate Health Promotion Programs.

As staff members feel better, more relaxed, more valued and more human to their organization; they enjoy an increase in productivity. This increase in productivity, while productive 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 goals and objectives are overall happier and in a better frame of mind.

The benefits of Employee Wellness Programs, both tangible and intangible, are evident. It is a wise move for a corporation to start a Employee Wellness Program, especially when they incorporate some form of mental health aspect into it. This also has social benefits as domestic violence and child abuse is demonstrated to be diminished in areas where wellness programs are implemented. These days, a corporation 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. Companies that implement it determine the safety and health problems of employees by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the employees.

It can, for example, guide the organization into determining how the air quality within an office room impacts the users and then help the assessment group to come up with the measures necessary to correct the problem. An HRA can also evaluate the level of exposure employees 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. Nevertheless, it has also become an important component of the top Worksite Wellness Programs in a myriad of organizations in North America.

Immunization shots, such as those used to combat flu, for example, are available to workers for free.

Employee Assistance Program

EAPs consist of a wide variety of services. It can range from offering educational resources to staff members regarding health problems to sponsoring health services and health care. In a myriad of companies, medical and insurance have also become a staple part of their benefits system.

In-house nutrition drives

This is another wellness program that organizations 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 corporations can enable is a self-powered tool using a newsletter to reward wellness, coupled with a visible campaign. The campaign may be done periodically and focus on a specific topic, such as smoking hazards, cancer, stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, safety in the workplace, etc.

The employee wellness newsletter in itself can be an effective means to deliver information to employees or members of a employer but it is far from perfect. Some employees, for example, may not read the newsletter entirely or even pay attention to it. If the problems 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 organizations is one that involves physical activities. Companies frequently sponsor exercise-related activities such as marathons and corporation sports programs to bolster workers to remain fit or lose excess weight. In mid- to large-sized organizations, organizations may even pay for health club memberships or in-house exercise facilities.

Rewards and Incentives

Some of the top wellness programs implemented by companies involve Incentives. This involves business-sponsored programs that reward workers for achieving specific wellness-related objectives and goals. Participation in health campaigns and signing up for wellness programs are two of the most commonly 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.

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

Peer Pressure

In countless employers, employers take advantage of peer pressure in order to encourage staff members to take part in wellness programs. This is currently one of the favorite Corporate Health Promotion Programs currently in use today and growing in popularity. Peer pressure is often leveraged to help encourage competitions referring to workplace wellness and to persuade staff members to be active in employer-sponsored wellness and 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 healthy balance of the mind-body and spirit that results in an overriding feeling of wellbeing. It sounds like exactly what every one is looking for. But when you start to talk about corporate wellness, or workplace wellness, all life goes out of the concept. Total solutions, disease management and health assessment do not inspire visions of enjoying life and living it to the full. They start 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 employers – 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 frequently 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 numerous countries introducing laws to make employers liable for stress-related sickness in their employees. It is also fiscally 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 organizations are struggling to organize largely traditional and mainstream health systems, such as doctors, nurses, insurance and screening systems. The concern 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 many stress-related health concerns are described as chronic diseases, 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 corporations for emotional concerns, but whilst it may provide a useful pressure valve it is not a powerful treatment for stress, unhappiness or depression.

Imagine walking into a corporation where the staff members 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 corporation would be a pleasure to work in and bound to be successful because people would be working to their optimum capacity.

So can we set up a system of true wellness that will serve the development of the companies and their staff members 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. Rates of 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 can’t rely on makeshift feel-wonderful wellness offerings, such as the onsite massage team which visits the office once a month or the wellness day that raises awareness for a modest amount of while but leaves most people unaffected. They are simple to organize but have little or no real importance on employee wellness.

Company needs are different than individual needs and many of the new small wellness employers that are springing up simply don’t have the capacity to serve the corporate market. Nonetheless it is in the best interest of both employers and workers to find and foster systems of wellbeing and health that really work – that benefit people to be happy, handle stress, love working, and to have sufficient 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 discover how to make truly healthy, happy workplaces where people thrive.