by Dr. Mark Thompson of Worksite Wellness
Judy, the HR Manager for a Fortune 500 company met with her CEO last week and the dismal report was this: company morale and employee health is at an all time low while turnover is at an all time high. The CEO challenged Judy to institute immediate action steps to create a cultural shift within the company while maintaining her other HR duties. This scenario is a typical day in the life of any HR manager in an unwell corporate environment.
The Shocking Research
I was doing research the other day on HR solutions and found an interesting study that made me think of Judy’s situation. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the University of California, San Diego found that obesity is hardly a private matter. In fact it spreads through social ties, like the workplace. The study reports that if a person’s close friend becomes obese, that person’s chances of becoming obese increase 57 percent!
LIfestyle Choices are Contagious
OMG! Could Judy’s morale problems be a result of something contagious like obesity spreading in social ties? You bet it could. We all know that if we hang out with “winners” we tend to win and we if hang out with “losers”, we tend to lose. Winning attitudes are contagious and so are poor, unhealthy attitudes.
Wellness Solutions
This is where insurance brokers become invaluable to someone like Judy because they can offer immediate and lasting wellness solutions via resources that take little, if none, of the HR’s time. This is true for HR Manager Jake Cordell at Sears in Bellevue whom recently asked Worksite Wellness to implement a health fair in their company, suffering with similar issues as Judy’s.
He says “To my surprise, the Worksite Wellness coordinator did absolutely everything to make the health fair successful for our employees. All we had to do is notify our associates and provide some space.”
Health fairs, talks and wellness programs are a step forward to boosting morale, increase productivity and decrease absenteeism because they are fun and promote healthy lifestyle choices. Which…. can be very contagious!
Please comment on the best wellness event that you have held and tell us why?
Source: New England Journal of Medicine, July 26, Vol. 357, No. 4 : David Cameron : Harvard Medical School : September 2007.
