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.

Poor health cripples a workplace. It not only impacts employees; it affects business profitability.  Factor in healthcare costs that continue to climb and it’s clear businesses need to abandon the “same old, same old” approaches when it comes to workplace wellness.

Waiting to treat people after they get sick isn’t a strategic way to improve workforce health. Forward-thinking companies see that disease management programs, for example, certainly have their place in a suite of employee health offerings for the people they serve. But they also know that in order to drive long-term business impact, they need to focus on prevention and create a culture of health that helps get (and keep) the majority of their workforce healthy – before costly conditions and diseases develop.  Fortunately, a progressive shift toward prevention is underway and population-based approaches are at the heart of it.

A population-based approach to employee health centers on reaching a large number of people at low and moderate risk that lead to more cases of costly conditions and diseases, rather than a small number of people at high risk.  Thinking holistically and keying into socio-ecological factors—the individual, their social system and network, and surrounding workplace environment, policies and programs that encourage healthy behaviors—is why a population-based approach is so effective. Influencing social norms and creating an environment where employees can more easily make healthy choices results in healthier, more productive employees.

This type of approach in the workplace makes sense since social relationships and culture play a tremendous role in our health.  Science proves individuals are heavily influenced by the behaviors and environment of those around them.  And with most adults spending a third (or more) or their day there, the workplace is an ideal venue in which to leverage social connections and help employees get healthy together.

Take physical activity, for example. It offers tremendous health benefits for everyone and is the cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle.  Adults who get 150 minutes of moderate to intense activity over the course of a week significantly reduce their risk of developing the majority of today’s most prevalent and costly chronic diseases.  What’s more, the benefits are even greater for those who get 300 minutes or more per week, or include strength and flexibility training as a part of their program. A population-based approach that incorporates physical activity as a key element can help support a range of healthy behaviors, such as eating healthier, getting better sleep, avoiding tobacco, managing stress, and many more.  The workplace is a great place to help people become more physically active and embrace other healthy behaviors together.

Recently, I presented a webinar about physical activity’s role in disease prevention and how a population-based approach to employee health drives more significant workforce health improvements and greater impact for businesses.  I encourage you to check out the recording if you’re interested in learning more about how population-based approaches can help your organization improve employee health and productivity.

Virgin HealthMiles, STOP Obesity Alliance, Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease and WorldatWork Invite Corporate America to Join Month-Long Initiative and Share the Health

Out-of-control healthcare costs and an unhealthy workforce put an unsustainable strain on business productivity and profitability. And employees feel it, too, paying more out of their pockets for higher premiums.  The good news?  We can actually do something about it.  Seventy-five percent of healthcare costs today are driven by often preventable and highly manageable chronic diseases, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some forms of cancer.  Today, Virgin HealthMiles, the Strategies to Overcome and Prevent (STOP) Obesity Alliance, the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease and WorldatWork announced the fourth annual National Employee Wellness Month, which will take place this June.

Closing the gap between a business’ desire for a culture of good health and actually achieving one is essential to making a sustainable impact on workforce health and business performance.  A recent Buck Consultants’ survey found only 10 percent of U.S. respondents felt they’d fully achieved a culture of health in their organizations, while 85 percent intend to pursue one.

National Employee Wellness Month is an annual initiative that provides business leaders with fresh ideas and proven strategies around prevention and wellness.  It offers a hands-on look at how supportive social communities, like the workplace, can help to improve employee health and productivity, lower healthcare costs, and help organizations create a positive culture of health. A WorldatWork study found that 38 percent of employers have seen desired changes in employee behavior as a result of their organizations’ efforts to involve employees in health and wellness programs.

Through a collective rallying call, the initiative’s four sponsors invite corporate America to participate in this month-long workplace wellness campaign to help showcase the power of prevention and social connections in creating and fostering a healthy workplace.  U.S.-based companies and organizations can participate in this year’s National Employee Wellness Month by becoming a Proud Supporter of the initiative.  Throughout June, participating companies will promote the benefits of healthy lifestyles, and provide motivation and opportunities for employees to increase their daily physical activity and engage in other healthy lifestyle behaviors.

Learn more about how to become a Proud Supporter of National Employee Wellness Month at http://www.nationalemployeewellnessmonth.com/proud-supporters. More information and resources about workplace wellness and National Employee Wellness Month can be found at: www.nationalemployeewellnessmonth.com.

The power of senior-level support in helping employees make healthy decisions and  some good old fashioned competitive spirit were recently on display in the first ever “Beat the Chief” challenge, sponsored by Virgin HealthMiles.  During the two-week challenge, Virgin HealthMiles CEO Chris Boyce and Tom Linebarger, CEO of one of the company’s leading clients, Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins, put it all on the line to see which executive could burn the most calories.  At stake was a $1,000 donation to the charity of the winner’s choice.

The competition was fierce, with both Boyce and Linebarger tracking their daily calorie burn and progress using Polar™ heart rate monitors and the HealthMiles program’s tools. The two also engaged in some friendly, motivational “trash talk” on the challenge’s website throughout the event.  In the end, Boyce was crowned this year’s champ, with an impressive 58,951 calories burned. Boyce said he’ll donate his $1,000 winner’s prize to Virgin Unite.  And in the spirit of the competition, Boyce said he’ll also donate $1,000 to Tom Linebarger’s charity of choice, Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana.

“Chris’ activity level was impressive and he outperformed me,” said Linebarger. “I received a lot of encouragement and support from Cummins employees from all over. The notes of encouragement, the healthy lunches and delivering exercise equipment to my office all helped keep me motivated. At Cummins we offer many health resources to our employees and their families. I hope this competition helps emphasize the importance of making a steady effort to stay healthy for the long term.”

“Tom is one of the most active and fit CEOs I know, which is reflected in the emphasis Cummins places on creating a healthy workforce,” said Boyce. “Tom’s outstanding daily performance in the challenge inspired me to kick up my activity level a few notches to keep pace with him. And knowing our employees were working hard to best our progress was also incredibly motivational. Challenges like ‘Beat the Chief’ provide important motivation for Virgin HealthMiles members to stay physically active.  I’m honored to have won this year’s competition, and am pleased to donate the prize to Virgin Unite and Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana.”

Employees Literally ‘Sweat it Out’ to Best CEOs’ Performance
Employees from both Virgin HealthMiles and Cummins (U.S. and U.K) also took part in the competition to see whether they could burn more calories and beat their respective CEOs’ performance. The top contenders from the companies were: Karl S. (32,950 total calories, Cummins U.S.), Johannes S. (29,535 total calories, Cummins U.K), and Dustin A. (17,617 total calories, Virgin HealthMiles).  In recognition of their top place finishes, each of these individuals will receive $1,000 from their companies to donate to a charity of their choice.

Learn more about the Beat the Chief challenge at www.beatthechief.com.

By now, most of us have asked ourselves this question: can I fit 30 minutes of physical activity into my day? For many, the answer remains no. We might have those 30 minutes to spare, but we choose to do something else with them.

A physician in Toronto turns this question on its head: can you limit your sitting and sleeping to just 23 and ½ hours a day? It’s a provocative question posed by Dr. Mike Evans in a video which presents fact after fact about why physical activity is the single best thing you can do for your health. He and his creative team pack this nine-minute piece with statistics, studies, facts and figures to (literally) illustrate the impact that physical activity has on our health.

It’s worth the nine minutes, but if you’d rather use them to exercise, here are the highlights:

Patients who got the prescriptive “dose” of physical activity (150 minutes or more per week) saw:
- 50% reduction in progression to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease
- 58% reduction in progression to diabetes
- 47% reduction in pain & disability from knee arthritis
- 48% reduction in anxiety
- 30% reduction of depression, 47% reduction with an increased “dose”
- 23% lower risk of death

Other notable facts:
- In a study of obese, inactive patients vs. obese, active patients, physical activity ameliorated many of the negative health consequences of obesity
- In a longitudinal study of 50,000 men and women, low fitness was the strongest predictor of death
- The biggest impact of physical activity on health is realized in patients who go from no activity to some activity

Here at Virgin HealthMiles, we’re really good at getting those sedentary employees, the ones who aren’t getting enough activity, up and moving.  Our programs are proven to get and keep employees engaged in physical activity by using a combination of financial incentives, social interaction (both on- and off-line), game mechanics, and easy-to-use technology.

And the results show this approach works.  In a recent 18-month longitudinal study of 11,000 HealthMiles members, 50% of participants who were inactive at the start of the program shifted their behavior to achieve and maintain physical activity levels exceeding CDC-recommended guidelines.  What’s more, a study of more than 100,000 HealthMiles members showed that HealthMiles members are 2.5 times more active than the average U.S. adult.

Learn more from our own Jennifer Turgiss about why a physical activity program is the best thing you can offer your employees to help them prevent chronic disease.

Tough to believe the holiday season’s already in full swing, isn’t it?  Typically, this is a time when good health can too easily go right out the window.  But, it can also be a great time to help your employees understand how to navigate the challenges of the season in a healthy and fun way.

Here are 7 quick tips you can share with your employees right now to help them have a healthy and active holiday season. 

1. Create a fitness challenge. Enlist your friends and colleagues in your quest to make exercise a priority during the season by creating a little friendly competition.  Who can Zumba down their waistlines a bit before Santa arrives?  Who can get all their holiday shopping done on foot?  Who take most steps between now and New Year’s?
2. Seek stress reducing activities. Is there a yoga or meditation class that can fit into your schedule this month?  Can you fit in a good walk during lunch?  Try to carve off some time each day to recharge your batteries.  It’ll help you stay energized and focused all season long.
3. Set your New Year’s resolutions early. Committing to health and fitness goals before the New Year kicks off can help keep you stay focused on achieving them.  Sharing your own strategies to get through the season in a healthy way can be a great motivator for family, friends, and colleagues, too.
4. Share the spirit of the season. Leverage the support of your colleagues by sharing tips for all things healthy—recipe ideas, new workouts, festive personal challenges, and more. 
5. Create a holiday wish list. Let family and friends know how they can support you and your healthy lifestyle pursuit this season by sharing your holiday wish list.  Healthy cookbooks, exercise DVDs, sporting goods gift cards, and relaxation CDs will help you achieve your health goals well into the new year.
6. Create a holiday playlist. Who doesn’t want to move when listening to Springsteen’s “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”?  Motivate yourself to move with a playlist of your favorite holiday tunes.  Share the list with your colleagues and friends to spread the good energy and grow your own playlist with their suggestions.
7. Celebrate! Dancing is a great way to celebrate the season and burn off those extra calories. Plus, it can be done anywhere—in your home, office, or at holiday parties – and it’s fun!  Dancing for just 15 minutes can burn up to 80 calories, so turn on your favorite tunes or your new holiday playlist, and celebrate the season.

And here are a few tips you can implement in your organization this season:

1. Lead by example.  Make the office holiday party a place where employees can easily make healthy food choices.  Foods like low-fat dips with vegetables, hummus and pita chips, and fresh fruit trays can make for a festive celebration – just as easily as rich, calorie-laden foods can.
2. Celebrate the spirit of giving and fight hunger with a healthy food drive.  If you’re fortunate to have enough food to gain the typical 5-7 pounds during the holiday season, why not share that food with those who are less fortunate?  Center your food drive around healthy foods so that others benefit from the gift of good health, as well. 
3. Offer incentives. Everyone can use a little extra cash during the holidays, or a gift card to help with their holiday shopping.  Create a friendly activity-based competition in your workforce (like which team can take the most steps in 2 weeks) and offer a few prizes for participants, if you can.  Incent your staff and reinforce healthy behaviors so both your employees and your organization are set up for a healthy new year.

Learn more about how your company can create a culture of health by helping your employees develop healthy behaviors.  And stay tuned for more healthy tips you can share with your workforce.

A recent survey from Aon Hewitt, along with the National Business Group on Health and The Futures Company, revealed that employees want their employers to do more to help them improve their health.

Three-thousand employees (and dependents) who get their health insurance through their employer responded to questions about health and wellness. Most are concerned about the cost of health care, now and in the future. Most understand the value of health and wellness programs when it comes to keeping costs down and improving their health. But most feel that their employers could be doing a better job at designing these programs to better suit their needs and goals.

Some key findings:

• Employees want better tools to help them make health decisions, ones that are tailored to their specific situation. Half of respondents want a personalized plan with recommendations for specific actions they can take to improve their health. This request is up 9% in just one year.

• Employees want easy, one-stop access to health and wellness information, with many specifically requesting a single health and wellness portal with personalized health tips and reminders.

• Money talks. Sixty percent of respondents said that they’re more likely to participate in wellness programs if they can earn rewards; 58% would be more encouraged to complete their HRAs if rewards were included; and 50% said that rewards would motivate them to participate in disease management programs.

• Despite myriad offerings, many employees seem to be unaware of what programs and incentives are available to them. More than a third (36%) of employees did not participate in even one program on offer by their employer.

• And perhaps most telling, 60% of respondents believe that their employers are only “moderately-to-not supportive” when it comes to their efforts to get healthier.

That last one’s kind of a kick in the gut, isn’t it? You are supportive. You do care. You care because it’s in their best interests to be healthy, and you care because it’s in your organization’s best interest for them to be healthy.  So where’s the disconnect? Much of it may have to do with the previous point, the one about awareness. You could be giving them exactly what they want, exactly the kinds of personalized programs that not only will help them improve their health, but show them how much you do, in fact, support their efforts to get healthy. But if they don’t know about them? Your efforts aren’t going to drive the impact you’re seeking.

Which brings us back to bullet point number two:  the desire for easy, one-stop access to health and wellness information.  A single location, one easy place, for your employees to learn about everything you offer and all the incentives they can earn will dramatically improve awareness.  An integrated approach means they won’t have to seek out the information, they won’t be confused, and they won’t be overwhelmed (which often leads them to just give up). Not only that, employees will see your various programs as a comprehensive whole; an overall, cohesive offering designed to help them improve their health.  And when you want to change or replace programs as your strategy evolves, employees will go to that one consistent, familiar place to learn about them.

To learn more about how an integrated approach can help you drive greater awareness and engagement in all the programs you offer, visit our Integrated Incentives Resource Center.

I walked past a Subway the other day and realized we don’t hear much out of Jared anymore. I can’t say I’m disappointed. He’s evil, after all.

Harsh? Yes. I bet he has good intentions and is a really nice guy. But his ad-driven celebrity and unusual weight loss method perpetuates the myth of the silver-bullet solution to our obesity problem.  At least the folks on The Biggest Loser are working hard and sweating their pounds off, not eating turkey subs.

Ok, so Jared’s not evil. And he may be one of the better of the quick-fix crew. But certainly, the easy-fix mentality has done more harm than good when it comes to healthy, sustainable weight management. Outliers like Jared set false expectations and divert attention from real approaches to managing our health. It leads to confusion, frustration, and all too often resignation and the next binge. So I’m hoping this famous quick-fix story disappears into obscurity.

You want an inspirational figure? How about one of our members, Monique Dillamon, who dropped over a hundred pounds by gradually increasing her daily exercise and replacing junk food with fruits and vegetables.  She told us she couldn’t walk a quarter of a mile when she began her journey to get healthier. Now she does martial arts. Or Wally Glover, a 61-year-old member who climbed a mountain to raise money for childhood obesity programs.  Forget Jared: there are real people right there in your office doing real things to change their health and influence others to do the same. And these are the people we should celebrate and emulate.

BOSTON, Mass., October 3, 2011 – OhioHealth, a network of five hospitals in Central Ohio with more than 15,000 employees, is applying innovative, prevention-based strategies to combat a widespread business threat: rising healthcare costs.   In line with industry data showing healthcare spending is 10 percent higher for hospital employees than for general employee populations, OhioHealth has taken steps to support employees with largely-preventable conditions like obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes that were driving up their healthcare benefits costs.  In 2006, OhioHealth rolled out its comprehensive “OhioHealthy” initiative to address these issues, but needed a physical activity component to better engage employees, provide validated data on the program’s impact and automate what had been a manual-based effort.  In 2009, OhioHealth launched the Virgin HealthMiles program to help accomplish those key objectives.

Today, OhioHealth associates are nearly 10 percent more physically active than the average US adult.  These improvements are mainly driven by Virgin HealthMiles’ Pay-for-Prevention™ approach that lets associates earn up to $500 annually for becoming more physically active, and making better health and lifestyle decisions.  And importantly, with this program, along with efforts to help associates be better consumers of their healthcare, OhioHealth’s healthcare costs are under control.

“OhioHealth has held its medical plan premiums costs flat for nearly five years mainly as a result of our focus on wellness and prevention and consumerism strategies,” reports Lisa Meddock, benefits manager for OhioHealth.  “We’ve also recognized more than $14 million in medical insurance savings since the inception of the OhioHealthy initiatives and consumerism strategies, including the popular Virgin HealthMiles program for our associates.”

View Free Webinar on OhioHealth’s Best Practices in Curbing Healthcare Costs
Meddock shared best practices about how OhioHealth created an internal culture of health and lowered healthcare costs as part of a webinar entitled, “Measurable Results: Employee Health Programs for the Healthcare Industry.” Meddock was joined on the webinar by Virgin HealthMiles executives, Jennifer Turgiss, Vice President Health Management, and Alan Larson, Healthcare Vertical Director; the group discussed the impact of lifestyle-related disease in the healthcare industry and how to measure the results of behavior shifts in employee health.

This webinar event was recorded and is available to view in its entirety by clicking here.

Many U.S. Companies Can Expect 25% Drop in Operating Profits in 10 Years without Immediate Action, Says Virgin HealthMiles Research Team

The nation’s debt crisis and Corporate America’s profitability have a common enemy: rising healthcare costs.  Despite 1.2 trillion in planned budget cuts, U.S. debt remains a record proportion of the country’s GDP due to years of spending hikes.  Likewise, a cumulative 138 percent increase between 1999 and 2010 in health insurance premiums  and associated costs are putting an untenable strain on businesses’ bottom lines.  Congressional Budget Office director, Douglas Elmendorf, recently stated, “An aging population and rising health-care costs will exert significant and increasing pressure on the budget in the years beyond 2021.” If the CBO is worried about the impact of rising healthcare costs on the U.S. balance sheet, businesses should be concerned about the impact on their books too, says Virgin HealthMiles.  Otherwise they’ll face a profitability crisis of record proportion driven by healthcare costs.

Medical science has historically focused on dealing with pathogens.  In modern times, healthcare problems often stem from behaviors that are driving the demands on our healthcare system.  Unless health policy and business priorities shift to focusing on prevention and helping employees make better health decisions, the financial consequences could be dire:

• According to the CDC, chronic disease drives 75% of healthcare spending today, of which 95 percent is spent on managing current cases of the disease.  Yet just five percent is spent avoiding the onset of these conditions.

• The Milken Institute reports the lost productivity associated with largely preventable chronic conditions like obesity, hypertension, heart disease and type 2 diabetes totals more than $1 trillion, including time lost for employee and caregiver workdays and individual and caregiver presenteeism.

• A Virgin HealthMiles research team recently conducted an economic study on the impact of chronic disease on U.S. company profitability and found if the last decade’s trends continue and companies don’t increase prices or productivity, by 2021 the average company in key industries such as finance and technology can expect to see a 25% decline in operating profits.

“Years of spending to treat preventable chronic conditions has failed to make us healthier as a nation; instead, it’s imperative businesses help employees become better ‘users’ of their bodies and more educated healthcare consumers, starting with the value of prevention,” commented Tom Abshire, senior vice president of marketing and member engagement for Virgin HealthMiles.  “Otherwise, our research shows companies are poised to take a potentially disastrous hit to their financials, which could threaten any sort of long-term economic recovery for our nation.”

Traditional corporate wellness efforts, where employees complete HRAs and self-report biometric and physical activity data, have consistently failed to motivate employees to become better health consumers.  Businesses must abandon this wasteful, ineffective spending and focus instead on prevention-focused, technology-based employee wellness solutions that are proven to have an impact and engage employees in long-term behavior change.

By focusing on prevention, employers can improve workforce health and avoid the onset of the costly medical conditions that drive the bulk of today’s healthcare spending.  With Virgin HealthMiles, employers ensure their employees see the short-term benefits to better health by providing cash or premium discounts.  And instead of just hoping an employee wellness program is making an impact, organizations can see their investments are driving real health improvements and lowering healthcare costs thanks to validated data provided by Virgin HealthMiles’ technology-based solutions.

Employers have a unique opportunity to align their interests with those of their employees and help them take more accountability for their health.  Most U.S. adults spend a third of their lives in the workplace and data shows workplace social connections play a powerful role in driving better health decisions. So before businesses find themselves in the same cash-strapped position as the U.S. government, now’s the time to take action.