This is a brainstorm I had when trying to envision a mindful corporate wellness program from an organization.  It never went anywhere, but many of the ideas are good.  Perhaps if you are in HR or otherwise, this will help you think through a more holistic approach to corporate wellness.

70% of all health-care costs are the direct result of behavior. 74% of all costs are confined to four chronic conditions (cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity). 80% of cardiovascular disease and diabetes is preventable, 60% of cancers are preventable, and more than 90% of obesity is preventable.

Marketing Plan…

Pick one organ….The Heart…and that’s all they hear about, focus on and see in the marketing campaign.

Overall wellbeing…all systems, emotional, physical, family, career, financial

All about creating a “family system” within company…heart centered employer

  • Beginning of Life to End of Life support
  • Assigned walking partners (walk and talks) to better integrate roles and departments
  • Systems to understand and help when someone is suffering illness, divorce, grief, children
  • Organizational health is dependent on Employee Health
  • Inside out focus…emotional à Physical

June is National Employee Wellness Month

February is American Heart Month

November is quit smoking

3 Pillars

  1. Stress Reduction
    1. Time management
    2. Mindfulness & Meditation
  2. Right Routine
    1. Family Systems
    2. Scheduling
    3. Work/Life Balance
  3. Right Choice Making
    1. Nutrition
    2. Habit Cessation

Audit Energy Systems…2 – 3 days each

6-months

  • Corporate Headquarters
  • New Aquisitions
  • Healthcare Loss Leaders

2 – 3 years larger organizations

  • The Rest

ROI 3:1 after 3 years… http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/benefits/articles/pages/preventing-health-risks.aspx

  • Beliefs, Habits & Receptivity to Holistic Lifestyle
  • Socio economic factors…more money, educated, & white are incentivized with cash rewards. Less educated, less money…doesn’t work.
  • Access to healthy lifestyle
    • Food, restaurants, gyms, walking trails, nature, etc.
  • Current lease situation…access to cafeteria, creation of “healthy space”
    • This would effect the initial rollout as above

Ideas:

Creating an opportunity for an environment where employees can learn and grow. Helping employees connect to a more meaningful life…a life of purpose and service.

Companies feeding breakfast & Lunch to employees get more productivity from employees. Example:

Oatmeal or Breakfast bar. Open a limited time frame before scheduled work day begins encouraging employees to arrive early, eat healthy, and begin working earlier. OR…utilizing walking trails, and “healthy space”

Healthy space includes floor for fitness, treadmills, meditation space, quiet space to lay down and nap.

Workshops & Group Classes offered daily…pre, lunch, post

Promotional materials supporting heart health…on the walls, weekly newsletters, recipe contests, etc.

Less Interesting Ideas with little proof of results:

  1. Gym Membership reimbursement
  2. On site screenings…these simply “look” good. Let the Health Insurance company manage this.

Interesting Ideas:

  1. Develop App or find App…results are accumulation, measurable and rewardable
    1. Pedometer
    2. Heart rate monitor (including ability to monitor stress)
    3. Meditation logging
    4. Food logging
    5. Time management…encouraging efficiency and productivity
  1. Wellness Champions…these are members of the executive team and critical to rolling out the initiative by site. Entire executive team at corporate would have to participate beta testing.
    1. Essay Contests for Employees on how their lives have changed.
  2. Competitions of 10 – 13 weeks.
    1. “I can do that walking…” Krogers has had great results
    2. Biggest Loser
    3. Cross Location….would pick the correct synergy for the teams based on the audit of the organization.
      1. Inner location… create teams of 5 – 12 persons to compete against each other.

Crazy Ideas:

Dog walking…. Get an out of shape dog and people are encouraged to take care of it….

Disease Management Programs…one on one & group coaching (Need Coaching team with integrative approach)

  • Diabetes
  • Asthma
  • Heart Conditions
  • Anxiety & Depression…(leading to obesity)

It surprises many people to discover that a very small portion of the U.S. population—just 5 percent—accounts for nearly half of total spending on health care, while 20 percent accounts for four-fifths of total spending. This relatively small slice of the population incurs such high costs because most of these individuals have complex medical problems. The problems include common but difficult-to-manage chronic diseases like diabetes and heart failure, as well as mental and behavioral health issues. Chronically ill people take more prescription drugs, undergo more tests and procedures, and are hospitalized more often than people in good health.

Managing Utilization Rethinking current insurance provider….Higher deductibles, HSAs or otherwise with ability to reimburse for holistic services. Global bundling…one fee for all and then insurer works to reduce number of procedures, practices and waste. They become key player of the preventative health team working to keep as much of their fee as they can.

  • All voluntary with disappearing premiums…??unions??
  • Mandatory Annual Exams to keep benefits.
  • Personality test upon hire…some people are motivated by future consequences of choice making and some people are not. Hiring focus shift to only those motivated by consequence.
  • Screening Upon Hire…drug testing, pre-employment (post job offering) physical exams (Would be interesting to fire everyone and re-hire everyone to force the exams to current employees…..tricky…Can you force an employee to be healthy? Incentives they volunteer to participate with.
  • Are you fit enough to do your job
  • Can you drug test every 6 months?
  • Families…family coverage…family systems.

Most expensive aspect of program…actually raises cost by up to 45% to identify risks in employees…hmmmm. An employer can save an average of $100 in health care costs per employee per health risk eliminated in the year of the change, and $105 per risk reduced in the year following the reduction,” said Steven Nyce, senior economist at Towers Watson and lead author of the study. “But if you don’t keep healthy people healthy and employees start accumulating new health risks, you not only negate this savings but stand to add health care costs of $145 per employee per health risk added within just one year.”

I hope this was helpful,  Pamela Quinn

 

*The sole purpose of these articles is to provide information about the tradition of ayurveda, yoga, and meditation. This information is not intended for use in the diagnosis, treatment, cure or prevention of any disease. If you have any serious acute or chronic health concern, please consult a trained health professional who can fully assess your needs and address them effectively. Check with your doctor before taking herbs or using essential oils when pregnant or nursing.