With June’s fourth annual National Employee Wellness Month kicking off on 6/1, organizations across the country are rallying in support of prevention and good health.  More than 130 leading organizations have pledged their support so far.

Now in its fourth year, National Employee Wellness Month showcases how prevention, coupled with supportive social communities like the workplace, helps to improve employee health and productivity, lower healthcare costs and create a workplace culture of health. This annual initiative helps employers learn from best practices of how companies are developing successful strategies around prevention and good health.

Forward-thinking employers know helping employees make healthy lifestyle choices can have a significant impact on curbing the rising cost of preventable and highly manageable chronic diseases.  Throughout June, participating organizations will promote the benefits of healthy lifestyles, and provide motivation and opportunities for employees to engage in a range of healthy lifestyle behaviors.

Wondering how you can mark the occasion – and, more importantly, promote a culture of health in your workplace? It’s easier than you think.

Here are 5 simple ways to promote healthy habits in your workplace this June and all year round:

1. Hide the candy bowls (or replace them with fresh fruit or veggies).

   We all know how incredibly tempting office candy bowls can be – and just a few candies daily can really add up. Offer a bowl of fresh fruit or other healthy snacks instead.

2. Have you refilled the office water coolers?

   Good health includes drinking lots of water – 8 glasses a day, to be precise. While we absorb some of that water through the foods we eat, it’s important to make a conscious effort to stay hydrated.

   Make it easy for your employees to get in the habit. Place water coolers in convenient locations around the office and fill them regularly. (Or you can invest in a filtering-water pitchers in the office fridge. Or even filtering-water coolers in kitchens and break areas to cut down on the plastic bottles.)

3. Encourage teams to “walk and meet”.

   The season of nice weather’s upon us – so why not take some meetings outdoors? Encourage your employees to “walk and meet” simultaneously at least once daily. It’ll get their blood pumping (and maybe help the creative juices flow, too).

4. Sponsor a healthy recipe swap in your workplace.
   Cooking at home cuts down on your restaurant bills and promotes a healthier way of eating. But many of us could use some fresh inspiration. Invite your employees to share their favorite healthy recipes with their peers.  Say 30 people participate, everyone gets 29 new recipes to try for themselves – that’s a whole month of healthy eats! 
5. Nudge healthier options for the takeout-lunch crowd.

   Many officemates order lunch as a group, relying on the same old stack of (usually unhealthy) menu options. Distribute healthier menu options to all teams; if you can swing it, arrange for an employee discount from local cafes offering healthier options.

   If your company has its own cafeteria, make sure there are healthy options offered daily and that your prices accurately reflect the choices you’re trying to promote.

Stay tuned for more tips and ideas on how you and your workforce can celebrate National Employee Wellness Month. We’re eager to hear your favorite tips, too. Watch this space for more crowd-sourced tips to kick off National Employee Wellness Month right. And follow #WellnessMonth on Twitter for the latest news and tips.

News and articles from this past week. 

The 5 Mega-Trends That Are Changing the Face of Health Care
The Atlantic
By Chris Rivard & Karl Rebay As the nation’s highest court weighs the fate of President Obama’s health care reform legislation, it’s important to keep one thing in mind: No matter what the nine justices ultimately decide, significant change is coming …

Obesity in the US projected to grow, though pace slows: CDC study
LATimes
Obesity in the United States is projected to continue its rise over the next 18 years, extending to 42% of Americans by 2030, according to a study released Monday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.That expected growth in the proportion of obese Americans — up from 34% — contained good news and bad: Obesity’s growth has slowed from the record-setting pace that has marked most of the last three decades; at the same time, the numbers of the severely obese — those carrying 80 or more pounds more than the healthy, normal weight for their height — is expected to grow by 130%.

U.S. Report Outlines Strategies to Prevent Obesity
USNews & World Report
The IOM strategies include: integrating physical activity into people’s daily lives; making healthy food and beverage choices available everywhere; changing marketing about nutrition and physical activity; using schools to promote healthy weight; and urging employers and health care professionals to support healthy lifestyles.

U.S. exercises half as much as it should
UPI
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends adults ages 18-64 get about 4 hours of physical activity each week by exercising moderately for 2.5 hours per week and engaging in a vigorous activity — running and muscle strengthening — for an 1 hour and 15 minutes per week. The study Americans spend, on average, only about 2 hours each week participating in sports and fitness activities.

Fitness in Middle Age Lowers Medical Costs Later: Study
HealthDay
Subsidizing exercise and fitness-related lifestyles in middle age could significantly reduce the ballooning cost of health care in later years, a new study of more than 20,000 people suggests. The study, slated for Thursday presentation at an American Heart Association meeting in Atlanta, found that fit middle-aged men and women had significantly lower medical expenses later in life compared to people who failed to stay in shape.

7 in 10 employers offer wellness benefits
BenefitsPro
Seven in 10 employers provide wellness benefits, including flu shots, health screenings and weight management programs, which are contributing to the improved lives of their employees, according to the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans’ recent survey, Wellness Programs and Value-Based Health Care. The survey shows that wellness programs have become more popular over the past 10 years, and while nearly…

Gamification.  Game Mechanics.  Buzz phrases of the day?  Perhaps.  Yet more and more, you’re likely hearing about them in the context of health. And how employers are using them to create healthier workforces.

A recent Towers Watson survey reports 26 percent of employers support or are considering supporting employee health management with the use of online games (up from just 9 percent in 2010).

And earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal featured an article on the topic: “Pitting Employees Against Each Other … for Health.” The author, Anna Wilde Mathews, talks about how employers are leveraging game techniques to help employees improve their health.  Here’s a quick video, which provides a nice summary of the article.

So what do game mechanics have to do with health?

Game mechanics are a powerful tool. They’re a great way to engage your employees in good health – both in the employee health programs you’ve put in place, and in those all-important offline behaviors you want them to engage in – like getting enough physical activity, eating healthy, avoiding smoking, and more.

Game mechanics help ensure employees can easily learn how to participate, what they need to do to make healthy behavior changes, and better understand their progress against goals.  They make things fun and spark competitive spirit.  What’s more, they offer short-term reinforcement cycles and help keep momentum going over the long-term – which is crucial for sustained engagement and behavior change.

Earlier this year, Tom Abshire, SVP Products and Marketing here at Virgin HealthMiles presented a webinar about the role of game mechanics in employee health programs.  You can check out the recording here.  In the webinar, Tom shared four keys to effectively use game design techniques and game mechanics to engage your employees in your workplace health improvement efforts:

1. Break long tasks down into small, achievable short-term goals that reward achievement.
   Achieving health goals is a long process. Even with a sizable personal or financial goal or incentive at the end, it’s hard for many individual to take those daily steps towards better health.  With game mechanics, you can break down these long paths into small steps that make the long-term goal achievable. Game mechanics can help create small victories that support developing habits.  And things like incentives and levels can reinforce achievement.
2. Turn tasks into paths. Actions into habits. And effort into play.
   Conversely, at times we need our employees to focus on a number of related, but disconnected tasks. Employers usually have a range of programs you want employees to take part in.  Game mechanics can be an important tool to help employees make sense of the range of programs you offer by creating paths to follow and certainty on where they should start.  Points and incentives can help them understand what’s most important or where they need to focus next, based on their specific needs or the plan design for their segment.
3. Convert users into players.
   Game mechanics can convert users into players.  This speaks to the shift in motivation.  As users, we’re externally motivated to achieve a task – to get the job done.  By converting users into players, motivation shifts internally. With internal motivation, we’re more likely to pursue the next step in the program, discover what other tasks or challenges that are available that can help us advance or achieve. We’re more open to collaborating, not just competing. Game mechanics can open up another dimension of motivational possibilities.
   
4. Create a unifying experience around a changing array of tasks.
   Gamification can be important in creating an overall unifying theme, tying together the disconnected incentives and game mechanics that individual programs attempt to employ.  This is critical when you’re changing partners or your overall plan design.  Employees can more easily adapt to and understand the changes when the changes happen within the familiar context of the overarching game.  A unifying game also allows for better cross-promotion of programs – increasing the awareness and perceived value of your overall health and wellness strategy.

If you’re considering using game mechanics in your employee health initiatives, be sure to keep this in mind: if you’re asking your employees to engage and change their behaviors, you need to support them with things they want to do.

Your gamification strategies shouldn’t be too complex. Otherwise, you’ll lose your employees’ interest and they won’t participate. And low participation won’t lead to very much impact for your business or improvements in workforce health.  To see success with your gamification strategy, keep things simple and interesting.  Use game mechanics everyone understands – points, levels, rewards, badges, leaderboards, etc. – to drive adoption of healthy behaviors and ongoing engagement.

Buzz phrase, sure.  But game mechanics aren’t all hype. Since the very beginning, we’ve incorporated them as a key component of our engagement mix. And we’ve seen them help employers and thousands of their employees reap significant benefits – like participation rates nearly three times the industry average and significant workforce health improvements and cost savings.

Learn more about how game mechanics can drive employee engagement and better health in your organization in this free white paper.