Worksite wellness: Sustainable changes for a healthier workforce

Promoting healthy habits in the work setting benefits both employers and employees. A healthier workforce contributes to reduced absenteeism due to illness and injuries, and increased productivity. More directly, healthier employees may reduce an employer's health care costs on premiums and worker's compensation claims. In order to control health care costs, worksites must focus on prevention to reduce the risk of chronic disease such as heart disease and diabetes. Healthy work environments benefit employees by improving their physical, mental, and emotional states. Full-time employees spend the majority of their waking hours at work, and wellness in the workplace can affect wellness at home.

Ultimately, health is the responsibility of the individual, but employers can support employees' efforts toward healthy habits by providing a positive, healthy work environment. Every day people face challenging decisions that affect their health. Employers can help faciliate healthy lifestyle habits by making the healthy choice the easy choice.

Sustainable changes are key for successful wellness programs. What can you do to maintain a healthy work environment? First, employers must believe in their employees' wellness and promote healthy lifestyle habits from executive management on down the line. Just like parents act as role models to their children so does management to their staff. Sustainability includes changing policies and best practices regarding wellness. Evaluate what you are currently doing to promote wellness in your workplace and decide what it is you'd like to focus on. Wellness means something different to each person. It is wise to start by conducting an employee needs assessment once the initial evaluation is complete. Data from the employee needs assessment will guide you in developing an action plan for creating policies and implementing activities. Wellness committees, or at least one person with wellness duties, are great for taking the lead on gathering data and implementing a plan.

Here at Panhandle Health District (PHD), the wellness committee recently completed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Health Scorecard to evaluate our wellness program. Since then, we have conducted an employee needs assessment to find out what wellness topics interest them and in what ways they prefer to learn about health. This has been helpful in planning wellness activities throughout the year that PHD employees are likely to engage in. The CDC Health Scorecard evaluates many wellness areas including nutrition, physical activity, lactation support, occupational health and safety, depression, stress and weight management, and much more.

Some well received activities PHD has implemented include a wellness store in which healthy food and beverage options are available at a low price to employees; yearly blood pressure checks; and many physical activity challenges such as "Stairway to Health" to promote taking the stairs over using the elevator.

The Idaho Physical Activity and Nutrition program (IPAN), housed at PHD, assists employers in completing the CDC Health Scorecard and creating an action plan for wellness activities. In addition, PHD offers support and resources for implementing your action plan and creating policies such as tobacco control and lactation support, while also promoting the CDC's National Healthy Worksite Program as another resource. If you are interested in improving or implementing your worksite wellness program, contact Sheila Hansen, IPAN Coordinator and Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, at (208) 415-5293. Sheila can work with any employer in the five northern counties. Together we can make sustainable changes for healthy living in our community.

Kimberly Young, MS, RDN, LD, is the WIC Coordinator at Panhandle Health District and a graduate of the University of Idaho Dietetic program.