Does Your Company Wish To Improve Staff Productivity And Reduce Sick Days?
Dr. Paul Lanthois
January 12, 2009
Have you asked your employees what their New Years Resolution is? If the answers are similar to my informal survey this year, chances are that around 25% of your employees want to lose some weight and get into shape this year. Obviously, it is in your company´s best interests for them to achieve their health goal because their improved health will generally translate to improved efficiency and less sick days off. So what is your company doing to support the health goals of your employees?
To support the health objectives of your work colleagues the human resources manager just needs to get in touch with the staff and find out what their health goals are. You can do this in casual conversation or in a staff memo or email.
Have a follow up conversation with the work colleagues who do want to get into shape and ask them how your company could help them achieve their goal.
At the suggestion of this, some human resource managers defensively reply, "We already provide discounted gym memberships and health insurance."
But is this what your work colleagues want? Low participation rates in many so called Corporate Wellness programs seem to suggest that many corporate wellness programs are not so interested in improving the health of their work force. For one, the large majority of companies do not even measure the fitness or health of their staff.
It would be easy to conclude that it is a greater priority for the company to be seen to be supporting the health of the work force than delivering actual results.
But how can you measure health results of your employees?
I suggest three ways to measure results...
The first is to have an annual physical. This could include a standard blood test (by a wellness-based doctor), fitness test (at the local gym with a trainer) and a postural assessment/spinal screening (by a chiropractor).
I recommend a doctor with training in wellness and prevention to do and interpret the blood test because they often request a more thorough blood analysis of certain biomarkers of health rather than the standard cholesterol and blood sugar levels. It is important to remember that health is a lot more than just not being sick. It is about your body and mind working as efficiently and effectively as it can.
It is important to monitor your fitness levels because it is a reliable indicator of how well workers will be able to maintain your energy at work. There are a variety of fitness tests that can be performed. When I studied exercise physiology at the University of Adelaide, we compared different fitness tests that estimated your fitness level (Your VO2 max) to the actual accurate measurement of your fitness (VO2 max). The problem is that this test requires you to exercise to exhaustion while being connected to all sorts of machines and monitors.
We found that different fitness tests were not an accurate measure of your actual fitness but we did find that if you continue to do the same fitness test over time, the results are an accurate indication of your fitness progress. So when you measure your fitness with these tests that estimate your fitness, don´t worry what fitness level it says that you are. Just use the results to monitor your progress and beat your previous result.
Getting a spinal screening and postural evaluation is one of the most important things to get measured because aches, pains and injuries are one of the most costly ailments for business. It is essential that these evaluations are performed by a chiropractor because they are the best trained in detecting potential weak spots and imbalances that can cause injury in the future.
Many companies and schools have had nurses or physical therapists do a spinal check by getting them to bend forward and that´s it. Because their training is more on rehabilitating injuries than prevention, using such professionals has resulted in failing to prevent so many injuries that have been waiting to happen.
Since back pain is one of the biggest costs to business you want to be checked by the profession that has the best record in dealing with back pain.
Secondly you should ask your employee to rate their health. I can recall many years ago that an article published in a major medical journal shocked the medical profession. The study concluded that doctors should actually listen to what the patients were saying because if you asked the patients how they were, typically their answers were quite accurate.
Thirdly you should monitor their lifestyle with a simple lifestyle evaluation form. That way you can identify potentially harmful lifestyle habits and direct them to healthier alternatives and advice.
With many people making New Year resolutions to get into shape, the start of the new year is the ideal time to assist your employees with their health goals because they are often more motivated at that time. In reality you can start any time.
The fact that you even ask your employees about their health and are interested in their health shows your employees that the company cares about them. Not only will this help the health of your employees and confer productivity benefits to your company, the fact that your company shows that you care will create loyalty and produce work productivity benefits on their own.
To support the health objectives of your work colleagues the human resources manager just needs to get in touch with the staff and find out what their health goals are. You can do this in casual conversation or in a staff memo or email.
Have a follow up conversation with the work colleagues who do want to get into shape and ask them how your company could help them achieve their goal.
At the suggestion of this, some human resource managers defensively reply, "We already provide discounted gym memberships and health insurance."
But is this what your work colleagues want? Low participation rates in many so called Corporate Wellness programs seem to suggest that many corporate wellness programs are not so interested in improving the health of their work force. For one, the large majority of companies do not even measure the fitness or health of their staff.
It would be easy to conclude that it is a greater priority for the company to be seen to be supporting the health of the work force than delivering actual results.
But how can you measure health results of your employees?
I suggest three ways to measure results...
The first is to have an annual physical. This could include a standard blood test (by a wellness-based doctor), fitness test (at the local gym with a trainer) and a postural assessment/spinal screening (by a chiropractor).
I recommend a doctor with training in wellness and prevention to do and interpret the blood test because they often request a more thorough blood analysis of certain biomarkers of health rather than the standard cholesterol and blood sugar levels. It is important to remember that health is a lot more than just not being sick. It is about your body and mind working as efficiently and effectively as it can.
It is important to monitor your fitness levels because it is a reliable indicator of how well workers will be able to maintain your energy at work. There are a variety of fitness tests that can be performed. When I studied exercise physiology at the University of Adelaide, we compared different fitness tests that estimated your fitness level (Your VO2 max) to the actual accurate measurement of your fitness (VO2 max). The problem is that this test requires you to exercise to exhaustion while being connected to all sorts of machines and monitors.
We found that different fitness tests were not an accurate measure of your actual fitness but we did find that if you continue to do the same fitness test over time, the results are an accurate indication of your fitness progress. So when you measure your fitness with these tests that estimate your fitness, don´t worry what fitness level it says that you are. Just use the results to monitor your progress and beat your previous result.
Getting a spinal screening and postural evaluation is one of the most important things to get measured because aches, pains and injuries are one of the most costly ailments for business. It is essential that these evaluations are performed by a chiropractor because they are the best trained in detecting potential weak spots and imbalances that can cause injury in the future.
Many companies and schools have had nurses or physical therapists do a spinal check by getting them to bend forward and that´s it. Because their training is more on rehabilitating injuries than prevention, using such professionals has resulted in failing to prevent so many injuries that have been waiting to happen.
Since back pain is one of the biggest costs to business you want to be checked by the profession that has the best record in dealing with back pain.
Secondly you should ask your employee to rate their health. I can recall many years ago that an article published in a major medical journal shocked the medical profession. The study concluded that doctors should actually listen to what the patients were saying because if you asked the patients how they were, typically their answers were quite accurate.
Thirdly you should monitor their lifestyle with a simple lifestyle evaluation form. That way you can identify potentially harmful lifestyle habits and direct them to healthier alternatives and advice.
With many people making New Year resolutions to get into shape, the start of the new year is the ideal time to assist your employees with their health goals because they are often more motivated at that time. In reality you can start any time.
The fact that you even ask your employees about their health and are interested in their health shows your employees that the company cares about them. Not only will this help the health of your employees and confer productivity benefits to your company, the fact that your company shows that you care will create loyalty and produce work productivity benefits on their own.
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