Corporate Wellness
Healthy Lifestyles at Work
Wellness: the optimum state of health and wellbeing achieved through the active prevention of illness - Berkeley Wellness Encyclopedia, University of California
Organizations today are looking for proactive, long-term strategies to manage their health care and employee benefits costs. Reducing benefits, increasing deductibles and lowering coverage impacts employees negatively. Focusing on prevention can be less costly than treating illnesses and injuries.
Implementing a successful workplace wellness program can:
- Reduce absenteeism
- Enhance productivity
- Contain health care costs
- Reduce medical insurance claims (most significantly in executive level employees)
- Decrease cardiac risk factors (with significant lowering of blood pressure and fewer cigarette smokers)
- General increase in employee fitness levels (including increases in aerobic power, muscle strength and flexibility and decrease in body fat)
- Support the recruitment of employees with positive attitudes toward health and fitness
Benefits & Barriers
In a 2006 study*, the majority (89 - 91%) of working Canadians agreed that regular physical activity helps them:
- Cope with and reduce their workplace stress
- Be more productive
- Recover from illnesses more quickly
- Do their work more effectively.
And 16% indicated that opportunities, programs and facilities for physical activity influenced their decision to accept a position, while 25% reported that these opportunities influenced them a great deal to remain with their current employer.
Work-related issues pose the biggest barriers to physical activity for working Canadians:
- 42% say lack of time due to work
- 36% say constant tight deadlines at work
- 29% cite roads near their workplace are too busy to walk or bicycle safely
- 25% mention the lack of pleasant places to walk, cycle or be active near their workplace.
Fifty-one percent of North and West Vancouver residents reported in a 2008 survey that they weren't more physically active because of lack of time, and 55% stated they would be encouraged to do more if they had access to low-cost or free recreational opportunities.
Getting Started: Wellness at Work
Effective workplace wellness programs concentrate on:
- Targeting resources into programs that focus on the most prominent health risks in your organization
- Providing one-to-one wellness assessments, counseling and programs designed to achieve each individual's health lifestyle goals (including weight management, diet and nutrition, cholesterol reduction, smoking withdrawal, substance abuse and stress reduction)
- Combining active outreach to non-participating employees with access to fitness facilities, parks and trails
- Getting feedback from employees about what they want
- Creating a corporate culture that encourages a healthy lifestyle
To discuss the details of how you and your company might benefit from and participate in the Corporate Wellness Resource Program, email or call Jocelyn at 604-983-6422.
