Tips to help keep employees healthy and stress-free.
1/13/2020 14:00
It’s a new year, and we all have positive changes and healthy habits on the brain.
The media (social and otherwise) is eager to offer ideas: Superfoods! Adaptogen supplements! Meditation apps! Streaming cycling workouts on $2,000 stationary bikes!
It seems that every year brings a slew of buzzy new health trends, but here’s one that’s endured: workplace wellness programs, Collector magazine Managing Editor Anne Rosso May reports in the January issue.
A report sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that more than 80% of U.S. companies with over 50 employees offered some sort of corporate wellness benefit.
Wellness is a broad term and encompasses a lot of different things.
There’s financial wellness: How financially secure do you feel? There’s social wellness: Do you feel connected to your community?
There’s physical wellness. Do you have healthy eating and exercise habits? And there’s also emotional wellness: Do you have access to the mental health resources you need?
But at its core, wellness describes a conscious effort to live and feel healthier—a movement many companies are championing. Not only are healthy employees less likely to miss work, but they are also on average more engaged and productive.
Rosso May reports on how to find a workplace wellness program that is the right fit for your company.
You have a lot of options, and it can be difficult to know which one would be right for your workplace. Just as you would with any other corporate initiative, it might be best to start with a committee.
That’s what Bassford Remele did last April when it decided to assess what stressors its attorneys faced and how the firm could help alleviate or even eliminate some of them.
“I don’t think it’s a great secret that the legal profession, studies have shown, deals with a much higher degree of depression, alcoholism, substance abuse and marital discord than the general population,” said Patrick Newman, attorney at Bassford Remele. “That issue is receiving more and more attention in legal circles and our firm wanted to jump on board and see what we could do to help our attorneys.”
Bassford Remele’s wellness committee, which is composed of five attorneys and the company’s HR managers, was assembled to represent a broad cross-section of the firm’s employees. The committee circulated a detailed survey to flesh out employees’ pain points.
Based on those results, the group ultimately decided to start with a series
of informational speakers, including the director of Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers, a Minnesota-based organization that provides peer and professional support services to local lawyers.
Most critically, Bassford Remele is turning wellness into an ongoing conversation, asking attorneys, “What can the firm do to make your life easier?”
The most common answer so far turned out to involve help balancing work-life responsibilities, so the firm is doing things like coordinating laundry services and lunch delivery to the office.
Taking advantage of technology is another way to help motivate your employees to participate in wellness programs, Rosso May reports.
Capio Partners LLC recently joined the Fitbit program to help motivate employees to live more active lifestyles.
Jenny deHoyos, vice president of client services at Capio Partners, said the appeal of the Fitbit program was that it gives your company a web page branded with your logo where employees can create teams, join competitions and monitor their steps.
“In the collection industry, you sit at a desk a lot, especially collectors who are expected to make so many phone calls each day,” deHoyos said. “Personally, for me and in speaking with other employees who are participating, you think you’ve walked a lot during the day but when you have something on your wrist that says you’ve only taken 200 steps—and your goal is 10,000—well, it’s an eye opener.”
In some cases, just starting the wellness conversation at your company can boost employee morale, but keep in mind once you start down this path you ultimately must deliver something of value to your team. What that looks like is up to you and your employees.
Read more on tips to implement an employee wellness program at your company in the January issue of Collector magazine.
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