Workplace Health and Safety

Health promotion programs have been shown to lower rates of absenteeism, staff member turnover rates, and health care costs. It’s a key piece of a corporation’s success.  The results of these health promotion programs lead to higher productivity, which in the end leads to a more profitable corporation.

In order for these health promotion programs to run properly and produce results they must have a clear operating plan with an attainable and measurable goal.  The health promotion programs must also encourage all staff members to lead a healthful lifestyle while at work and at home.

Health promotion programs have been introduced to organizations all over the United States to make staff members healthier and in turn happier. Corporations which implement these wellness programs do so to varying degrees. Some simply offer literature about how to live a healthful lifestyle and reduce stress while at work.

A lot of corporations offer medical testings and health risk appraisals for free during the year to help personnel understand what is going on with their health and what they are able to do to improve it.

At the top of the list, there are the corporations which providefree, onsite fitness clubs and aerobics programs to be used during lunchtime breaks or after work. No matter what is offered it’d be a waste not to take benefit of these wellness programs.

It requires cautious planning and thought to start wellness programs. Once a wellness program is put into place it is very imperative that you reassess and analyze it a few times in order to reach the main goal –  healthier staff.

All the wellness programs that are put in place must be evaluated after a determined time frame to help the business understand what needs to be changed or kept in place to maintain corporate wellness.

Health screenings are important wellness programs to identify chronic illness in their early stages. Once identified, wellness intervention programs can help prevent a disease from progressing.

Working with local hospitals and other organizations, you can obtain information on providing screening and intervention programs that could improve your employees’ health and save your business money in absenteeism, treatment for disease complications, and decreased productivity.

Below are some ideas to help get you began.

Based on your Worker Needs and Interest Survey and the demographics of your workplace, consider offering periodic screenings to find specific health risks like –

• Blood Pressure Checks to identify employees with pre-hypertension or hypertension (high blood pressure),

• Cholesterol Screenings for total, HDL (good cholesterol), LDL (bad cholesterol) and/or Triglycerides

• Blood Sugar Screenings fasting or non-fasting to screen for possible diabetes,

• Body composition, such as Body Mass Index  or body fat measures

• Bone density for potential risk of osteoporosis,

• Cancer screenings such as, skin investigations, mammograms, or PSA screenings,

• Vision checks for glaucoma, or visual acuity

• Other screenings depending on your staff member population and needs

Your local hospital, business doctor practice, or health department my provide assistance. Nevertheless, if you’ve a young workforce you may want to concentrate on health promotion programs that will keep them healthful rather than screening for early identification of chronic disease.

The focus of your wellness program could  be healthy lifestyle practices to reduce risk and prevent disease.

In addition to the biometric screenings, consider offering a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) to all workers.  The Health Risk Assessment (HRA) will help to identify factors that might lead to additional risks, like smoking history, stress levels, perception of health, family history, job satisfaction, support systems, and mental health.

Very often the screening results are included on the Health Risk Appraisal, which provides a more robust snap shot of health risks.  The summary results provide the important information to plan appropriate interventions.

Wellness Program Interventions

The key to the success of screenings and HRAs is the interventions or follow-up programs.  The information from the screenings increases awareness and often arouses employees to consider making healthier changes.

It is the follow up interventions that provide the essential support and assistance needed for staff to actually make and maintain those changes.

The interventions can include individual follow-up and ongoing counseling, individual or group medical coaching on the risk factors, behavior change programs, and/or organizational support. Examples include –

• Strategies to lower blood pressure

• Managing diabetes

• Taking care of your heart

• Healthful eating

• Weight loss strategies

• Increasing physical activity

• Tobacco use Cessation

Of course, this is for individual information only. Any follow-up interventions planned by the corporation would be based on interest expressed by the employee.

Based on the results and your Wellness Committee goals you are able to plan the best strategies for your business and workforce. Consider the community resources available to provide services, such as health associations, hospitals, health care providers, and/or public health agencies.

Everyone knows today that working in corporate America could be a stressful situation. It seems that staff members are expected to work longer hours and spend more time away from home. Long commutes and big amounts of work are taking its toll on U.S. office employees. Something must be done; company wellness is a good way to begin to help all those stressed out employees.

Starting organization wellness programs can help create a healthful culture. There ought to be an incentive program set up to drive interest to wanting to be more health conscious. Making good decisions that affect health now and in the future ought to be rewarded as individual’s objectives are met.

There are a number of health promotion program ideas that a organization health promotion program can help plan for. Some ideas include giving out maps of walking or jogging trails located near the workplace. It’s a good idea to post a steps collected map on the workplace wall where all staff can log their steps or miles.

Make certain to help encourage joggers, walkers, and those who enjoy other forms of exercise to form workout groups to meet before work, at lunchtime, or after work.

In a business environment, relationship development is also an area where aligning cultural touch points are necessary. Be certain to work culture affects health practices.

Staff Members will either form personal relationships in a bad way, like tobacco use in the break room, or they’ll form relationships doing something more physical like going for a round of golf for relaxation and developing friendships with fellow workers. Be certain to work ought to be done to create healthy venues to create expert friendships and relationships.

There are so many good benefits for a business picking  to make business wellness a priority. Staff Members who take part in health promotion programs are more likely to be the best employees.

Colleague relationships in the workplace are imperative that you creating a healthful lifestyle culture that lasts.  As an added bonus, overall job satisfaction is better when personnel are feeling well and healthful while doing their work.

HRAs, are an assessment tool or questionnaire scientifically designed to identify health risks and outline information to assist person in making healthy changes that impact their health and prevent chronic illness.

HRAs have four standard elements in workplace establishings –

• A Questionnaire

• A Computerized Program to Evaluate Health Risk

• Confidential Individual Reports

• Group Summary Report

Person complete a lifestyle questionnaire that includes for example nutrition practices, height and weight, exercise habits, family history, stress perceptions, use of tobacco history, and work satisfaction.

Another important feature to consider is readiness to change questions to determine participation interest. Including health screenings like cholesterol and blood pressure (BP) causescreases the benefits of an Health Risk Appraisal (HRA) by providing a more precise health assessment and accordingly bettering lifestyle option decisions and health promotion program choices.

However, it’s crucial that you determine when the HRA could be used without including this information.

The questionnaire information is entered into a computer program and a personal confidential report is generated that summarizes health risks in addition to information on how to lower risk factors.

Individual reports are completely confidential. Depending on the reason for beginning the Health Risk Appraisal, it is vital that you consider the kind of report the corporation will receive as well.

A group report summarizing major risk factors and recommendations for health promotion programs to start for reduce worker and corporation risks provides valuable information for your health promotion program.

The Health Risk Appraisals (HRAs) can be used to –

• Bring awareness to individual staff member’s health status

• Motivate employees to make healthier lifestyle changes

• Coach high-risk employees

• Plan wellness programs based on the identified needs

• Evaluate wellness program success by comparing Health Risk Assessments (HRAs) completed at set intervals such as yearly.

Company health promotion is one of the most essential investments that a business can make. Organizations that commence health promotion programs are not simply investing in the physical health, safety, and mental health of the workers, but are also taking preventive measures by developing a much healthier atmosphere.

By implementing a wellness program, companies can easily enhance the overall productivity and can easily reduce costs on healthcare costs. Very often, companies have concerns regarding the true wellness Return On Investment but the fact is that by encouraging healthier life choices, companies are building healthier personnel who will work more diligently and miss fewer days of work as a result of illness.

It is very important that businesses not only offer corporate health promotion solutions for their personnel, but that they also maintain ongoing information about wellness and safety techniques. Corporations need to keep current on health statistics and remain alert to methods to encourage specific wellness concerns like smoking cessation or weight loss.

It’s often ideal for a corporation to talk with physicians who participate in medical Continuing Medical Education so that they are up to date with how they may assist their staff to maintain wellness.

Moreover, when a company maintains an onsite health and fitness center, it’s necessary that the company employs individuals who have received the appropriate training and certification, which makes up the health and fitness center management, for assist workers with exercising safely.

Even though companies may establish a comprehensive wellness program with a lot of options, an incentive wellness program is often required for encourage personnel to actually participate in the programs.

Whether one is building a corporate wellness Chicago or a corporate wellness small-town Nebraska program, the issue that companies often have in common, is the lack of motivation of staff members to actually participate. Providing incentives for staff members, like a free lunch or gift cards, may  be simple enough rewards to encourage staff members to participate in corporate wellness.

There are many benefits to considering a part-time or full-time occupational and environmental health nurse (OHN). Occupational health nursing is the specialty practice that provides for and delivers safety and health programs and services to staff, and employee populations.

The practice focuses on promotion and restoration of health, avoidance of disease and injury, treatment of work and non-work related injuries and diseases, and protection from work related  and environmental hazards.

OHN roles can include –  Case management, Counseling, Wellness, Legal and regulatory compliance, Clinical services, and Hazard detection and controls.

The American Association of Occupational and Environmental Health Nurses is the national association, www.AAOHN.org.  The State Chapter also has a website with information including local chapter information to help you find a contact near you, www.NCAOHN.org.

Health educators can design, conduct and evaluate activities that help improve the health of all your workers. They’re subject matter experts who might  be a valuable asset regardless your wellness program needs and goals.

They can help form a Health Promotion Committee and implement many of its health promotion programs and services, for instance or depending on the structure and time commitments of your Health Promotion Committee, they can also coordinate the entire health promotion program as well.

Integrating the activities of the Committee and/or Wellness Professional services within your operations, including within your safety and occupational medical program will provide additional benefits!

Do you know the fastest-growing reason for employee assistance program use since 2003?

It isn’t for substance abuse or depression. Actually, it’s financial in nature. Over the last five years, there’s been a announced 69% jump in employee employee assistance program (EAP) use related to personal financial concerns.

The trend isn’t all that surprising in this era of salary freezes, high deductibles and cost-sharing of benefits premiums.

Statistics show that, for the first time since the Excellent Depression, the typical American has negative savings â.” in other words, debt exceeds income â.” in a typical month.

Many staff are racking up high credit card debt, make the problem worse.

Troubling trends

Here are some ominous numbers from a recent worker survey -

o  27% of respondents said they were “one major setback away from financial disaster”

o  22 percent say they were “worse off than last year, with less take-home income and more debt”

o  40% say their business is “insensitive to their employees’ financial needs,” and

o  only 6% said they felt comfortable with their current financial situation and ability to manage their debts.

The majority of personal-finance related EAP use arises from concerns over debt management, household refinancing and/or failed investments.

———–

We are planning corporation health promotion programs to help you feel better and stay healthful. In order to plan health promotion programs that best meet your needs and interests we’d like your suggestions!

Please take a few minutes to answer some questions about your interests. Your answers are going to be combined with those of other’s and reviewed to help plan health promotion programs for you. Do not sign your name.

Please complete the survey today and return it to__________. Thank you for your valuable input! Your help is important for planning successful health promotion programs. Return the completed form by _____________.

Rate your interest on a scale of 1 – 3 with one (1) being of little or no interest; two (2) being of some interest and three (3) indicating that you’re very interested. Indicate your response by circling or “Xing” the number.

I am interested in –

Participating in wellness programs before work 1 2 3

Participating in health promotion programs after work 1 2 3

Participating in health promotion programs during my lunch break 1 2 3

Learning healthy eating options to lose weight 1 2 3

Sports nutrition 1 2 3

Healthier cooking 1 2 3

Assisting my children eat healthier 1 2 3

Quick, healthy meals for busy lifestyles 1 2 3

Healthy snack options 1 2 3

Learning how to quit use of tobacco 1 2 3

Attending courses to help me quit use of tobacco cigarettes 1 2 3

Stress Mangement skills 1 2 3

Balancing work, family, and personal life 1 2 3

Time management skills 1 2 3

Participating in a beginning fitness program 1 2 3

Planning time to exercise for busy people  1 2 3

Getting health information that I can peruse or watch at home 1 2 3

Learning about cancer prevention 1 2 3

Heart health choices 1 2 3

CPR and First Aid 1 2 3

Team sports activities at work 1 2 3

Learning how to stretch 1 2 3

Learning how to raise intake of fruits and vegetables 1 2 3

Parenting Topics (age of children –  ) 1 2 3

Onsite exercise classes –  walking Yoga aerobic other –  1 2 3

Biometric testing such as blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar 1 2 3

Permitting workers to bring camera phones to work can carry hidden legal risks.

But should you tackle this issue aggressively or trust your personnel to do the right thing?  Every company wants to create an environment where personnel feel trusted by management. But there’s also the need to stay protected legally, and it isn’t always easy to balance the two.

The cell phone issue is in particular delicate since most employees carry them nowadays, and improper use at work is a non-issue for the vast majority. But there are always a few bad apples in every bunch.

Growing number of complaints

There has been an explosion of lawsuits â.” and complaints to senior management â.” about staff taking inappropriate photos at work with their cell phone cameras.

Most cases revolve around embarassing or expliclit photos of colleagues (sometimes but not always posted on the Internet or e-mailed to others in the office). However, a handful of lawsuits have arisen from staff taking photos of confidential documents or other internal information.

As most benefits and HR veterans would tell you, the most valuable benefit an organization can offer its workers is a worksite where they feel trusted and valued. Conversely, it only takes one “joke” gone too far to stir up a hornet’s nest of trouble.  And no business is immune from this risk.

Three options

One step every company ought to take is circulating a memo or having a face-to-face meeting with personnel about the need to restrict camera phone use at work, says labor lawyer William Hannum.

This is the time to answer questions and make clear that the policy is a matter of a legal concern, not a case of Big Brother watching over employees’ shoulders. for added legal protection, you may want to create a formal camera phone policy to be written employee handbooks.

Some employers have gone so far as to take the step of banning camera phone (or personal cell phone) use at work and prohibiting individuals  from posting personal photos or videos from organization computers.

However, these policies are challenging to enforce and run the risk of alienating the majority of workforce who use the devices responsibly.

As an alternative, several firms that have not banned camera phones have had workforce sign a policy that gives managers permission to review photos or videos on the phone when there’s a complaint. When you go down either of these routes, remember -

o  The policy should be enforced consistently

o  your policy must detail specific steps for filing and evaluating  a complaint, and

o  The policy should obviously spell out the disciplinary steps for violations.

The enforcement aspect is namely tricky. In cases where the phones are company property, businesss obviously have the right to control non-work use â.” which includes requiring staff members to turn over the contents stored on the phone in cases of suspected abuse. Workers have no legal expectation of privacy in such cases.

Nonetheless, there’s a slippery slope when the phone is an employee’s property.  As a rule of thumb, companys typically have the right to inspect the contents as they pertain to alleged inappropriate behavior within the workplace.

Where it gets tricky is dealing with behavior that takes places on the employee’s private time, but overlaps with the workplace (e.g., workforce go out socializing at a bar after work, and potentially embarassing camera phone photos get spread around the workplace). Legal specialists caution companys to tread very carefully in these cases.

Where does your company stand?

Does your business have â.” or is considering a policy on staff member camera phones? Do you think such policies are workable or even appropriate?

In my conversations with attendees at the SHRM conference in Chicago, HR and benefits managers appear to be divided on the issue.

Program investigation could  be the last step, but it must be planned at the beginning of your efforts! Analysis assists you identify what parts of the health promotion program are working well and what parts need improvement.  

Then, based on the investigation data, adjustments may be made to fine-tune your health promotion program.   Adjusting the health promotion program based on investigation data is crucial to its continued success.  

Evaluating your wellness program doesn’t have to be complicated.  HOWEVER, it’s imperative that you plan how you will monitor your wellness efforts and determine success during the planning phase.  

Likewise remember to evaluate the health promotion program based on the goals and goals you already identified during your planning process.  

In order to evaluate your wellness program you need to have a system to document specifics as you go along.  This may be as simple as maintaining file folders on wellness programs that are offered, or a computer document with a table or spreadsheet summarizing information gathering.  Consider –

• Program topic and numbers of personnel who participated

• The numbers of flyers taken by employees or distributed and on what topics

• The number of participants in a behavior modification program and how many met their goals in addition to how many attended all of the sessions

• Numbers of workforce who continued the healthy behavior change following the health promotion program?

• Overall staff member satisfaction with the health promotion program or each topic. Here is a sample analysis form.  

Depending on your goals and goals, gather desired data and compare it to previous data collected during the initial assessment to determine if the goals were met.  Such data might include

• Absentee rates

• Injury rates

• Health risk factors Insurance costs  

Summarize and Report Health Promotion Program Results

Once you’ve gathered all the evaluation information it needs to be reviewed with the Health Promotion Committee and summarized. You’ll probably have positive results and some areas where a change is needed or additional focus required for continuous improvement.  

This not-so positive information can be used to make any needed changes in addition to to plan for next year and is important to include in your report.  

It is vital that you communicate the wellness program results to both upper management and staff members.  Consider how upper management generally receives reports on operations and productivity issues and include the annual wellness program report in the same format.  

At some organizations the reports are made during senior level management meetings using presentation styles like power point slides.  At other organizations, graphs and bar charts are the norm or a list of the goals and the summary outcomes reported.  

No matter the format, it is crucial that you convey the outcomes and successes achieved, including any anecdotal stories, in addition to areas for improvement. Be sure to link the outcomes to the company mission and bottom line whenever possible.

Staff Members want to receive the same information!  Consider using the same communication channels used when informing staff members of the health promotion program –

• Business newsletters,

• Bulletin boards,

• E-mails  

Likewise consider celebrating successes and recognizing achievements by –

• Posting pictures from events

• Highlighting success stories

• Posting pictures of successes

• Scheduling a celebration

• Recognizing champions