Wellness In The Workplace
September 2011
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Help Us Make Wellness Viral
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Social Media is a Great Way to Make Wellness Viral
If you like what we put in our monthly newsletter . . . there's more! Take a look at our LoneStart Wellness Facebook Page. We provide links to a wide range of health, wellness and well-being articles, as well as to our "Wellness & Well-being" Blog posts. CLICK HERE, take a look, and we hope you'll join the LoneStart Wellness conversation.
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Making Wellness Work
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The Connection Between Wellness and Morale
How's your organization's morale? It's an important question because for an organization to thrive, it's essential that employee morale is high.
Studies show that organizations with high morale experience greater productivity and employee engagement, and show lower rates of absenteeism, presenteeism and employee turnover. Their workforce is a happier workforce which leads to attracting and retaining talented employees.
We know poor working conditions can lead to low morale and to a negative attitude about the organization itself. The sociologist Alexander A. Leighton defines morale as, "the capacity of a group of people to pull together persistently and consistently in pursuit of a common purpose." This is exactly what the LoneStart Wellness Team Esteem Challenge introduces into an organization's worksite - with the added benefit of a focus on employee attitude toward wellness and positive, sustainable lifestyle behavior change.
Here's how it should work ... when employees work together toward a common goal (wellness) as a team, their morale is boosted, and along the way, productivity increases. The job becomes less stressful and more motivating. And this is why using a wellness initiative as a morale-builder can be effective on several levels.
By offering a wellness program as a team-building experience you show your employees you value and appreciate them. You are offering an opportunity for learning and development, and as a result, they feel more secure and committed to your organization. But, it's important for all employees, and management, to be involved. If management isn't engaged, employees won't be engaged. And if employees feel the wellness experience is being done to them, or to some of them, rather than for all of them, they not only won't be engaged - they won't participate at all.
Like wellness, high employee morale can seem like an abstract, even elusive concept - yet it's vital to the health, and competitiveness of your organization. It helps keep employees motivated, engaged and even innovative, and for employees who are now asked to do more with fewer resources, it's a critical element to your organization's success.
By supporting your employees with a team-building and morale-boosting wellness experience, you are offering opportunities that promote self-growth through healthier lifestyle behavior choices. And, the health care cost savings resulting from a successful team-building wellness initiative, will improve your organization's bottom line. That's a morale booster for everyone.
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Creating a Culture of Wellness
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Beyond the Workplace
If you've initiated an employee wellness program, for employees only, you're missing a large part of the population you cover with the health care benefits you offer.
According to the American Institute for Preventive Medicine, your employees account for only about 30 percent of your organization's health care costs, while dependents account for the remaining 70 percent. A wellness program that reaches only employees and not their dependents is going to limit reductions in health care costs. That's why your wellness program, including communication materials and program information must involve the entire family. To reduce health care costs significantly, you want to affect behavior change in the lifestyle choices made by the whole family. This is one reason why wellness programs that revolve around employee membership in a fitness club is not the best strategy for accomplishing your overall, long-term wellness goals.
Your wellness initiative efforts need to reach beyond the workplace. The LoneStart Wellness behavior-based initiative is designed to do exactly that through its take-home program materials. Reuters Health reports that people who are obese at age 18 are more likely to develop type 2 diabetes as adults. Using data from an ongoing federal health survey of U.S. adults, researchers found that, on average, obese 18-year-old men had a 50.1 percent lifetime risk of developing diabetes, while obese women had a 57.3 percent risk. Substantial diabetes risk is not limited to the heaviest of this age group however. The study found that 18-year-olds who were merely overweight had a 29.7 percent to 35.4 percent lifetime risk of diabetes.
Furthermore, if one parent is obese, there is a 50 percent chance that the children will also be obese. However, when both parents are obese, the children have an 80 percent chance of being obese. (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.)
The high diabetes risk among overweight dependents of your employees is especially alarming because they may develop the disease at an early age. This increases the risk of diabetes complications like heart disease and kidney failure. And this, in turn, affects your current employees, your current dependent coverage health care costs and your future workforce. In fact, an employee with diabetes will cost $13, 243 on average annually, while an employee without diabetes costs only $2,560 on average. (Diabetes America) Yet, just a 7 percent loss in weight can produce much as a 58 percent improvement in the risk of progressing from pre-diabetes to diabetes. And this translates directly into ongoing health care cost savings which benefits everyone.
In order to achieve maximum, real-life effectiveness, your employee wellness initiative should be designed to "go home" with your employees and effectively engage their families in a realistic, achievable strategy to make meaningful and sustainable improvements in their lifestyle choices. The body of evidence is growing. An Indiana University - Purdue University, Fort Wayne (IPFW) study concluded that 87.5 percent of your health care claims costs are due to an individual's lifestyle.
We know lifestyle changes make a difference in individual - and group health, and resulting health care costs. CLICK HERE to request more information on how LoneStart's behavioral wellness Imitative can get your organization, employees and dependents, actively engaged in making better, sustainable lifestyle choices.
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Share the Health
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Going to the Dogs
 The majority of your employees probably have a pet. And, while our focus is on human wellness and well-being, the following puts this focus in a perspective most of us can relate to. We hope you will share the following food for thought with your employees and co-workers. About 62 percent of all American households have a pet. Dogs come in first at 40 percent, followed by cats at 34 percent. We love our pets, we take care of our pets, we look after their needs. Last year Americans spent $55 billion on pet foods, including "human grade" pet food. Walk into a PetSmart or Petco store and look at the number of natural and organic products, some that sell for up to almost $7 a pound. You can find vitamin-infused, mountain spring water for dogs (more than $3.00 a bottle). You can buy pureed vegetables, canned organic sweet potato and canned organic pumpkin (purportedly safe enough to make a pumpkin pie for your family). Keep looking and you'll find labels that tout organic, free-range, grass-fed and wild-caught. You can also find pre-packaged serving sizes for pets with weight problems. (Now, we have to ask what would happen if pets were fed less and maybe we took them for a longer walk? Wait, that means we would have to walk further too!) Here's a thought . . . do you pay more attention to what you feed your pets than what you feed yourself or your family? Do you choose pet foods that contain complete and balanced nutrients (necessary nutrients in proper proportions), or do you buy the cheapest food on the shelf? Do you check the label to see if you are buying grain-free food to avoid fillers and unreliable ingredients? Do you look for age appropriate foods, or foods designed to meet special nutritional requirements? Do you feed your pet the recommended portion size? In other words, when you're making nutritional choices for your family, do you put the same thought into looking at labels, appropriate portion size, and healthy, natural content as when choosing Fido's dinner? For additional interesting, thought-provoking ideas, check out our "Wellness & Well-being" Blog. You can also "Like" LoneStart Wellness on Facebook (just click the icon).  You'll find links to our Blog posts and many other wellness-related articles.
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If your organization is ready to take responsibility for promoting healthy lifestyles and a healthy work environment, and if you are ready to create the foundation for a sustainable Culture of Wellness, LoneStart is an effective, low-cost and easy-to-administer employee wellness program, which functions equally well as a stand-alone initiative or as a high-impact jump-start to existing or proposed employee wellness strategies.
Contact us today to find out how the LoneStart Wellness Initiative will change your workplace.
Please share Wellness in the Workplace with colleagues and employees.
Please forward this newsletter to friends and associates who will benefit from a workplace wellness strategy such as the LoneStart Wellness Initiative.
A Challenge. An Opportunity. A Solution.
The LoneStart Wellness Initiative
phone: 512.894.3440
Editor's Note: The information contained in this newsletter is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
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