Wellness Challenges Are Popping Up Everywhere

Wellness Challenges are definitely hot right now and they are encouraging more and more people to get healthy and live better. Whether it is a city or a school or a social group or even a whole state, competitive spirits are being ignited by the challenge to be the healthiest team. The challenges are usually about a six months to a year in length and they are made up of several teams, these teams all get points for physical activity, selecting healthy foods, and just making better life and health choices overall.

The best part about wellness challenges is even though there really is only way “real” winner; everyone that participates in the challenge is a life winner.

Wellness Challenges Provides Incentive to Get Healthy

Establishing a wellness challenge in your office is a great way to get employees to participate in your established wellness program. Have employees form teams and receive points for everything from attending a corporate health fair to getting a health risk assessment to starting an exercise regimen. At the end of the year, the teams will win prizes based on the number of points they have accumulated.

Wellness Challenge Kick-Off

Contact Employee Wellness USA and have our team come out and provide on-site health screening for all participating employees, so that everyone has a baseline to judge their improvement from. We will then work with you to create a wellness program that will be the foundation of the challenge.

Wellness Challenges Improve Corporate Health

Not only will wellness challenges improve the health of your employees, it will improve the overall health of the corporation by providing benefits such as reduced injuries, reduced frequency of worker’s comp, reduced healthcare costs, better employee attendance, and better corporate morale.

Like we said earlier, everyone is a winner in a wellness challenge!

What is a Wellness Proposal?

You probably have seen this term many times and wondered what exactly it means. A wellness proposal is a proposal put together by a wellness company, such as EmployeeWellnessUSA.com, that makes suggestions for what type of wellness programs you should choose, what tools you will need to accomplish your corporation’s wellness goals, and costs associated with it.

Wellness Proposals Assist Human Resource Departments

A wellness proposal is a great thing to have in hand when HR Departments go to upper management to request funding for a wellness program. It will provide necessary stats and trends, background information, and costs that will enable the HR Department to fully present their case. Upper management will appreciate the preparedness and the research that has gone into your wellness request.

Wellness Proposals Lead to Better Wellness Programs

A well thought out wellness proposal can lead to a better wellness program, because the building blocks will already be in place. Wellness proposals will guarantee that your corporation gets the proper wellness program established. Wellness programs can vary greatly, but when your employees ask, you can tell them that they generally include the following:

• “Walking Wellness,” which incentivizes employees to take walking breaks around the vicinity of their workplace.
• Company sports teams, yoga classes and massage therapists at the workplace.
• Dietary advice, weight-loss and healthy cooking classes, stress management sessions, and either an employee wellness resources column in the employee newsletter or a wellness newsletter.
• “Take the stairs” initiatives to show how stair-walking can improve health.

How to Get a Wellness Proposal

You can get a wellness proposal by contacting an Employee Wellness USA corporate wellness representative. They will ask you all sorts of questions regarding your corporate goals, employee goals, budgets, etc, to assist them in putting together your personalized wellness proposal. The best of all, at Employee Wellness USA, it’s FREE. So what are you waiting for?

Workplace Obesity: The Facts

Workplace obesity has become one of the fastest growing health care problems in America. It is well known that America is considered one of the, if not “the”, heaviest countries in the world. This is largely in part due to fast food, un-healthy snacks and a very sedentary lifestyle. However, what many people are not aware of is that the rate of obesity in our country has doubled in the last 30 years and this weighs heavily on a company’s bottom line.

According to a new report from The Conference Board, Weights and Measures: What Employers Should Know about Obesity, obese employees cost private employers an estimated $45 billion annually. Here are some of the report’s findings:

• Obesity is associated with a 36% increase in spending on healthcare, more than smoking or problem drinking.
• 34% of adult Americans fit the definition of “obese”
• Obesity related health problems are costing American companies billions of dollars annually in medical expenditures and work loss.

Workplace Obesity: How Employers Can Help

With the increase in obesity and employer costs associated with it, it is more and more imperative to establish a way to assist employees with their healthy living choices. Wellness Programs can help employers help their employees. By providing assistance with health screening, health risk assessments and by conducting employee wellness surveys; wellness programs allow the employer non-invasive ways to communicate their concerns about their employee’s health.

EmployeeWellness.com suggests establishing a Walking Wellness program to assist your employees in meeting their weight-loss goals. Walking Wellness is a program designed to get your employees away from their desk and get them outside for a little exercise. Keep it fun by having contests, setting up weight-loss teams and having organized healthy picnics.

If you have any questions about how to get your employees moving, and therefore saving them and your company money, please feel free to contact one of our wellness experts.

Is It Necessary to Incentivize Corporations to Initiate Wellness Programs?

Corporate incentives may seem like an effective way to get employees excited about employee wellness - but is it wise?

Our opinion at Employee Wellness USA is that if it helps and encourages employers to understand the importance of maintaining a healthy workforce, not only for the welfare of its employees, but as well as the welfare of the corporate bottom line … then, yes, it could be necessary.

Tax Breaks as an Incentive for Corporations to Offer Wellness Programs

In 2007, two senators decided to band together to create the “Healthy Workforce Act.” This act is designed to encourage businesses to keep employees healthy and prevent disease. The senators believed that having a country focused on “well care” versus “sick care” would decrease the overall costs of healthcare for everyone. They decided to start with the America’s workforce.

The legislation, introduced by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, states that companies would receive a corporate incentive - a fifty percent tax credit - if they offer to their employees a wellness program that meets the following criteria:

1) A health awareness and education component, which could include health risk assessments and health screenings.

2) A behavioral change component – such as counseling, seminars, or self-help materials to empower employees to lead healthier lifestyles.

3) A supportive environment component – including offering meaningful incentives to participating employees, such as a reduction in health premiums or allowing employees to engage in walking wellness during the workday.

4) The creation of an employee engagement committee – which would tailor the wellness program to the needs of the workforce at a particular company.

If this legislation gets passed, many organizations will be scrambling to offer employee wellness programs in hopes of receiving the corporate incentive. Why not get ahead of your competition and start now? Contact our workplace wellness experts to get your corporation on the road to becoming healthy. We offer free consultations and are happy to answer any questions you have regarding our wellness services. At EmployeeWellnessUSA, we believe that encouraging your employees to be physically active, eat better and learn how to prevent disease benefits everyone.

Workplace Wellness: An Attainable Goal

Was workplace wellness on your company’s new year’s resolutions list? Here we are a little over midway into the third month of 2008, the time when resolutions start to falter if they haven’t lost momentum completely. Has your workplace’s wellness resolution fallen by the wayside? If so, there are still ways to get back on track.

One workplace wellness tip comes to us from the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, reported from the Jersey Shore. Rod Shirk, the YMCA’s chief financial officer, participated in the organization’s first executive wellness program, which registered his cholesterol as higher than normal. That prompted him to get a physical, which showed high levels of a prostate-specific antigen that often indicates prostate cancer. The outcome? His doctors caught a life-threatening illness just in time.

All thanks to a single health management program.

So of course, Shirk is a huge proponent of workplace wellness programs. He says, “For us here at the YMCA, if we are telling people to be healthy, we had better set a good example for our staff.”

Workplace Wellness Decreases Health Care Costs

Though cases like Shirk’s dramatic cancer save are the most desirable effect of workplace wellness programs, it isn’t the initial draw for workplaces. They do it to lower health care costs, and there’s no doubt that workplace wellness programs do just that. Corporate wellness statistics show that programs return anywhere from $2.30 to $10.10 per dollar spent on wellness. “Health care costs should go down as people think about changing their diets and getting more active,” Shirk says.

The workplace wellness savings aren’t just in the health insurance department. Human resource departments report that wellness programs also reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.

Still, companies have been loath to invest that elusive workplace wellness dollar despite the well-documented returns. A Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive survey found that only 10% of small- to medium-size employers have made on-site health screenings - like the one that saved Shirk’s life - available to their employees.

Don’t Let the Other Guys Hog the Workplace Wellness Glory

Fears of ballooning costs and complexity keep companies like yours out of the workplace wellness game, but we at EmployeeWellnessUSA hope that you won’t leave your competitors to reap all the benefits of improved employee wellness. Feel free to browse our information on health management resources or simply contact our workplace wellness experts for a free consultation. We don’t believe better corporate wellness should hurt. Let us show you how we can help make it painless. Your employees will thank you.

Good Corporate Wellness Starts with Personal Health and Wellness

Personal health and wellness might be the fatal flaw in your corporate wellness plan. Is personal health and wellness part of your strategy? Does corporate wellness stop when your employees leave the office?

Give Your Employees Personal Health and Wellness Continuity

If employees don’t have the tools to pursue wellness on a personal level, then it becomes easy for them to “fall off the wagon” and slide back into a less healthy lifestyle. If you have a walking wellness program, for example, it should encourage employees to build walking routes near their homes, perhaps with the cooperation of the neighborhood association or coworkers who live in the neighborhood.

Personal Health and Wellness Means Never Being “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

Your corporate wellness program coordinators should have “vacation wellness” as part of their job scope. In other words, you don’t want corporate wellness to stop at the boundaries of the corporate campus. Instead, integrate personal health and wellness with your employee wellness programs.

For example, what if Human Resources were to give out a personal health and wellness wallet card whenever someone goes on vacation or sabbatical? With some card stock and a small laminator, these cards could be easily customized to remind the employee of the employee wellness programs that he or she is currently participating in, making it easier for them to continue with their health and wellness on a personal level when away from the familiar environs of the office.

This benefits your corporate wellness programs in two ways:

• it reduces the chance that the employee will come back to the office feeling unfit, overwhelmed and unable to resume their health and wellness activities; and
• it shows that their employer is just as invested in their personal health and wellness as they are

Like a marathon, personal health and wellness is a long-haul commitment and it’s difficult for any one person to do in isolation. Simply put, it’s easier to maintain your health and wellness when you know others are depending on you and watching your personal performance. It’s easier to stick to an exercise program when you have a jogging partner who wakes you up when you oversleep, or spots you when you’re lifting weights.

Similarly, it’s easier to stick to your personal health and wellness plan when you know your employer is supporting you and wishing you the best.

Don’t Dictate Personal Health and Wellness

Just as corporate wellness surveys serve a vital function in building a health and wellness plan at work, it’s critical that you involve employees in designing an off-site personal health and wellness strategy. No one enjoys being dictated to, but everyone enjoys having assistance in tacking tough problems. Make it clear that employees are in charge of their personal wellness. Your role as their health management partner is to support, advise, counsel, provide resources and dole out information.

Of course, don’t forget that part of your personal health and wellness responsibility is to provide good health risk assessment baselines so employees can proceed safely on the road to better fitness. For that purpose, and for any health and wellness questions you may have, think of EmployeeWellnessUSA as your health management partner. Don’t hesitate to call our health and wellness experts about how we can help with onsite health screenings or simply for obligation-free advice.

The Wellness Councils of America Have an Employee Wellness Test for Your Community

Employee wellness program administrators, get ready. The Wellness Councils of America have thrown down the gauntlet.

No, they’re not inviting you to some bare-knuckle confrontation in the parking garage. That would be counter to the principles of the twenty-one-year-old Omaha, NE, non-profit, which is dedicated to encouraging healthier lifestyles, focusing primarily on better employee wellness through the workplace. WELCOA, as it’s more succinctly known, is an organization of like-minded individuals, corporations and Wellness Councils in the United States that defends the health of the American worker.

The corporate wellness challenge? To see if your organization can help catalyze and catapult your community to prestigious “Well City” status.

Are You Fit for “Well City”?

According to WELCOA, Well Cities are those cities that take health management seriously at every level, from the individual citizens to the small non-profits to the largest employers.

In Well Cities, a significant portion of the community has taken a committed approach to employee wellness. Employers are drawing lines in the sand, agreeing to help employees eat healthy, get exercise and de-stress.

Employee Wellness Is a Win-Win Proposition for Employees and Employers

As you may already know from reading the articles in our employee wellness library, a focus on health risk management and proactive employee wellness planning has tangible benefits for both employees and employers. Employee wellness statistics show that better health means better productivity and job satisfaction. Some employees actually consider corporate wellness programs to be compensation - as valuable as a high salary.

But it doesn’t stop there. The numbers also show that employee wellness ROI can be in the range of $2.30 to $10.10 per dollar spent on corporate wellness programs, benefits and initiatives. These savings come in the form of lower absenteeism, less sick time and lower health insurance premiums.

Current Well Cities

The list of WELCOA Well Cities is diverse and exclusive:

• Bangor, ME
• Kanawha Valley, WV
• Kearney, NE
• Gainesville, FL
• Hobart, IN
• Lincoln, NE
• Chattanooga, TN
• Omaha, NE
• Jacksonville, FL

Employee Wellness Mavericks - Get Well City Soon!

We at EmployeeWellnessUSA believe that service-minded employee wellness coordinators should think long and hard about the ancillary benefits of shooting for Well City status in your community. Not only is it a good opportunity to meet like minded organizations and city officials in your area, but it has the potential to galvanize your workforce. Applying for Well City status suddenly makes their health and wellness a matter of civic pride.
For more on employee wellness and Well City, see the WELCOA Well City website. Or simply contact our employee wellness specialists about your corporate fitness plans.

Health management programs - with perks

Health management programs don’t always stir the blood of employees, even though they’re designed to do just that. How do you get employees to enroll in health management programs - and stay enrolled?

The brochures for these programs tout the benefits to employees and employers. Employee wellness statistics show that there are tangible benefits. Employee wellness programs actually do save lives by getting workers to take their health seriously.

However, St. Louis, MO-based Maritz Inc., the world’s biggest incentive company, has applied their own invigorating twist to health management by offering gift rewards to employees who participate in health management programs. The gift reward program is Maritz’s own Exclusively Yours® plan. Health management participants earn points, which can be then redeemed for merchandise, electronics, restaurant vouchers and travel, much like a frequent-flier program.

Bribing your staff to enroll in health management programs?

Doubtlessly companies that don’t do incentives as their main business will be tempted to cry foul about using such a rich carrot to incentivize health program enrollments. Not every company can throw that kind of money at health management resources - and not every company has the built-in cost savings as a business that specializes in offering incentive programs.

Doubtlessly rich incentives like Maritz’s will break through the glaze that appears over many employees’ eyes when they’re encouraged to do something new, different or difficult. For many employees uncomfortable with health management and exercise, “new, different and difficult” would apply to health management programs. So where does that leave employers who are unwilling or unable to offer incentives for health management program enrollment?

Successful health management programs motivate employees - before and after signup

Health management program administrators should keep the long-term view in mind when trying to get employees to take that critical first step. Even the best incentives can fail in the face of faltering organization, badly-designed health management programs and wavering support. Make sure to run good corporate wellness surveys before you build your health management programs so employee input and needs are being met by your health management programs. The goal is positive outcomes, not high enrollment numbers.

Health management programs cannot survive managerial apathy. If executive and managerial participation is widespread and heartfelt, employees will follow their leadership. The potential rewards and corporate wellness benefits are clearly worth reaping, for both your employer and your co-workers. If you’d like a free health management program consultation, don’t hesitate to contact EmployeeWellnessUSA.

Employee Wellness Study Shows Billions Lost Due to Illness

Employee wellness was shown to be a huge economic boon for companies in a recently-released joint report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Nearly three billion productive employees in labor markets worldwide add up to a lot of money. The employee wellness study estimates that China will lose $558 billion, India $237 billion, and Russia $303 billion in national income from 2005 to 2015 due to only three chronic diseases: heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Lack of Employee Wellness A “Huge Expense”

The U.S. Center for Disease Control also reports that chronic disease accounts for approximately 75 percent of yearly employee health care costs in the U.S., which constitutes a huge expense for companies. And the Public Health Foundation of India estimates that its country will lose 18 million potentially productive years of life by 2030, a statistic no nation can afford, let alone a developing one.

Employee Wellness Programs the Answer

A sustainable solution to these challenges cannot be solved by medical benefits alone. Workplace commitments to employee wellness are also crucial. Companies are advised to implement on-site health screenings for their employees, as well as look into a comprehensive health management program. These and other precautions are good secret weapons against the economic pitfall of unhealthy employees.

Worksite wellness is good for business — and good for employees. We’ve talked about workplace wellness, health management, health and wellness… and if you’ve been paying attention, you probably have figured out what the employee wellness statistics are saying. A good worksite wellness system more than pays for itself in productivity, lower health insurance premiums, and worksite satisfaction.

Now we’ve found out about a new, free tool that you can add to your worksite wellness toolbox — a free worksite wellness report on small business wellness from WELCOA, the Wellness Councils of America. Worksite wellness isn’t just for the big boys, and this worksite wellness report from WELCOA president Dr. David Hunnicutt proves it. In the report, entitled “The Art of Implementing a Great Worksite Wellness Program in a Small Business Setting,” Hunnicutt points out ten critical worksite wellness steps that your small business can take to encourage wellness at your workplace.

The report’s subtitle, “Introducing WELCOA’s Small Business Workplace Wellness Initiative,” illustrates WELCOA’s awareness of the important of small business to the American economy and to wellness for American employees. A few steps from the report that we heartily endorse:

• designate a company wellness leader
• conduct an employee wellness survey to assess worksite health interest
• make on-site health screenings available at the worksite
• administer an annual physical activity campaign to get employees active, and
• promote community health efforts.

Take a look at this worksite wellness report and see what you can do for your worksite — and for your company.