Obesity in the workplace can be a complex and sensitive topic. Excess body weight is one of the most common health conditions in today’s workforce, and it’s also a public health issue.

The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) reviewed more than 1,400 articles published between 2011 and 2016 that studied obesity in the workplace. Based on the findings, the researchers developed several recommendations for employers to manage obesity among workers to improve health outcomes and reduce health care costs.

Their findings were published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine in January 2018.

How obesity and workers’ compensation are connected

The study reported several ways that obesity and its associated health conditions adversely impact the workplace. Obesity is associated with sleep disorders, increased depressive symptoms, lower productivity and absenteeism. It’s considered a risk factor for musculoskeletal disorders such as osteoarthritis and back pain, which are some of the most common workplace injuries.

The research showed an indirect association between obesity and workplace injury rates — workers who meet the definition of obesity file more workers’ compensation claims and require more days off to recover before returning to work.

In a Duke University study , workers with a body mass index (BMI) greater than 40 filed twice the number of workers’ compensation claims as non-obese workers. They had seven times higher medical costs from those claims and lost 13 times more days of work from work injury or work illness than non-obese workers.

A University of Texas-Austin study showed that for workers with major injuries, a higher body mass index was associated with more expensive workers’ compensation claims. Recovery can take longer, complicated by weight-related medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Focus on prevention at work

Obesity has high costs both in terms of a worker’s health and costs to the employer. What can an employer do to address obesity in the workplace? After reviewing the research, the ACOEM panel recommended that employers tackle the issue through both prevention and treatment.

Workplaces can help employees reach or maintain a healthy weight by designing the work environment to encourage physical movement and healthy eating.

The types of short-term lifestyle modifications typically seen in workplace wellness programs can have modest results. However, it can be a challenge for workers to maintain the behavior after the challenge is over. Instead, ongoing interventions like wellness and nutrition classes, fitness club membership discounts and healthy options in the vending machine could make a lasting impact.

For more on effective wellness programs, see our tips for starting and building your workplace wellness program and wellness program best practices.

For more findings from the ACOEM study, see the full ‘Obesity in the workplace’ report .

 

Is there chatter around your office about weight loss goals and couch-to-5k training programs?

The new year brings a renewed focus on health and wellness for many of us — probably including your employees. Does your workplace reinforce or counteract your employees’ desire for a healthy lifestyle?

A healthier workplace can motivate employees to make healthier choices for themselves — at work and at home. Workplace wellness efforts can also play a part in reducing chronic disease and injury risks.

Employees who are less fit are more likely to take sick days, develop chronic health issues and get hurt on the job and off. Smoking and obesity can compound health issues, delaying recovery and making workers’ comp claims more expensive.

Wellness programs can reduce costs associated with employer-sponsored health plans, workers’ compensation claims, short- and long-term disability and absenteeism, studies show.

No matter your business size, investing in a workplace wellness program can be extremely valuable. Studies show that well-designed wellness programs have a return on investment of $1.50 to $3 per dollar spent.

Get started on your workplace wellness program

If you’ve been thinking about offering a wellness program, but don’t know where to begin, one tips is to start small.

Encourage employees to take walking and stretching breaks. Bring in an instructor for an office yoga session. Replace the Monday morning doughnuts with fruit. Offer flu shots.

Wellness programs can cover a wide range of issues that affect your employees’ overall well-being. In a survey of SFM policyholders, respondents who already have wellness programs said they address some or all of the following topics:

• Stress reduction
• Physical fitness
• Nutrition
• Weight management
• Mental health
• Smoking cessation
• Financial wellness

Tailor the wellness offerings to your workplace. Ask your employees for their ideas. As you try new wellness efforts, you’ll learn what works for your employees.

Integrate safety and wellness

Think about encouraging employee health together with safety.

The concept of Total Worker Health, developed by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), can be your guide. Total Worker Health integrates safety and health programs, with an emphasis on a hazard-free work environment to protect from injuries and illnesses and promote overall worker well-being.

To incorporate Total Worker Health into your workplace, look for opportunities to dovetail wellness programs with your loss prevention efforts. An initiative like SFM’s “get up and move” stretching program can introduce employees to the benefits of frequently moving throughout the day — benefits like reduced frequency and severity of injuries, increased productivity and higher energy.

Promote a culture of health

Research has found that the most successful workplace wellness programs promote a culture of health that permeates all aspects of company life. Showing that you care about and value employee health, safety and well-being will help embed wellness as a way of life.

The Workplace Health Resource Center provided by the CDC offers a searchable database of resources to begin or build on a wellness program. Check with your health insurance provider or employee assistance program on their offerings. Find more wellness articles on SFM’s blog.

Offering workplace wellness activities could be the extra motivation an employee needs to get moving — and keep going after the New Year’s resolution mania fades.

No matter your business size, there’s value in building a culture of health in your workplace. Wellness programs are one of the leading ways employers influence worker well-being, health and productivity.

We were curious about how employers use wellness programs, so we asked SFM policyholders in a recent survey.

Wellness programs varied by organization size

Of the 209 survey respondents, 1/3 answered “yes” to the question, “Does your workplace offer a wellness program?”

Results varied by size, with larger employers more likely to have a wellness program.

For the smallest companies, under 50 employees, only 17 percent responded that they had a wellness program. This increased to 33 percent for companies with 50-499 employees and 50 percent for businesses with 500-999 employees. Two-thirds of the largest businesses, with more than 500 employees, reported a wellness program.

Percentage of employers offering wellness programs by number of employees

Wellness program topics

The wellness offerings within a program can vary widely. We asked employers who had a wellness program what topics they address.

Other offerings mentioned:

• Free flu shots
• Medication management
• Chronic health issues
• Workplace relationships
• Biometrics

For more information on workplace wellness programs, see our posts:

• Two key factors for a successful workplace wellness program
• ROI and VOI: A strong wellness program measures both
• 10 statistics that make the case for workplace wellness programs

For more on specific topics such as stress, fatigue and mindfulness, see all the posts in our Wellness category.

What makes an employee wellness program successful?

Researchers from the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health attempted to answer that question by identifying best practices in the most effective wellness programs.

So, what did researchers say are the key success factors?

The name of the study gives it away: “Promoting Healthy Workplaces by Building Cultures of Health and Applying Strategic Communications.”

According to the study, two primary keys to employer-sponsored wellness program success are:

1) building an organizational culture of health and
2) applying strategic communications

The researchers analyzed nine companies whose wellness programs showed demonstrable results, reviewed past research and held roundtable discussions with experts in the field. Their findings were published in the February 2016 Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine .

Key success factor #1: Building a culture of health

The study defines a workplace with a culture of health as one that “places value on and is conducive to employee health and well-being.”

“Employers with successful wellness programs have learned that isolated ‘perks’ or programs such as an on-site fitness center or menu labeling, will not have much impact unless they are part of an overall culture that permeates all aspects of company life,” the study says.

Everyone has a hand in the culture

Leaders, managers and employees all have roles to play to truly integrate wellness into the fabric of an organization.

• Leaders set the example when they practice healthy behaviors, implement healthy policies and practices, and provide enough resources to sustain wellness programs, the study says.

  For example, at one large company the researchers studied, the CEO was public about his own weight loss goals.

• Managers must encourage employees to incorporate healthy activities into their workdays.

  “In a culture of health, managers offer work flexibility, decision latitude, reasonable goals, social support and consistent messaging on the value of health and well-being,” the study says.

• Employees can help shape and build the wellness program so that it meets their needs. Employee engagement could include focus groups, program evaluations or simply having an environment where employees feel free to share their suggestions with leaders.

  “At many of the organizations we visited, employees reported being very engaged in the program and ‘owners’ of the program because initiatives were continually evolving based on their feedback,” the study says.

Embedding wellness as a way of life

Ultimately, wellness must be seen not just as a program, or even package of programs, but as a part of how the organization operates, the study says.

“It is about creating a ‘way of life’ in the workplace that integrates a total health model into every aspect of the business practice — from being embedded in the corporate mission down to the policies and everyday work activities that are supportive of career, emotional, financial, physical and social well-being,” the study says.

Creating an environment that physically supports health

Do employees at your workplace have easy access to exercise and healthy food options during the workday? Is making the healthy choice the default option?

These key questions can help you determine whether your work environment physically supports employee health.

For example, researchers visited Next Jump, a company of 200 employees. Next Jump started by holding fitness classes in a company conference room after hours and later built an on-site fitness center. Management there stocks the refrigerator with free healthy snacks like yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, fruits, vegetables and hummus, and candy jars have been replaced with fresh fruit and nuts.

Key success factor #2: Applying strategic communications to improve employee health

Researchers called strategic communications “one of the most critical building blocks” for a successful wellness program.

Communications can help employees understand how the program works and what they’ll get out of participating. It can also be used to share success stories and reinforce the most popular aspects of the wellness plan.

One study researchers cited showed that organizations with frequent and strong communication campaigns were able to spend $80 per person less on financial incentives and still get high wellness program participation.

Successful wellness program promotional campaigns are built to achieve well-defined objectives, whether that’s motivating employees to make healthy choices by sharing success stories or increasing awareness of available health and wellness resources.

6 tips for an effective communication strategy

1. 1. Be transparent with employees about why the organization promotes health. Being genuine will build trust.
   2. Avoid targeting a specific health ideal, like achieving a body mass index of 25 or less, or taking 10,000 steps per day. Instead, encourage employees to set and achieve progressive goals that are attainable for them.
   3. Use a variety of messaging channels: email, newsletters, posters, direct mail, intranet and social media. And don’t forget word-of-mouth communication (especially from peers and leaders they know personally)!
   4. Communicate frequently to increase awareness and ongoing participation. Vary the messaging so it doesn’t become overwhelming or stale.
   5. Deliver messages at key decision points, such as nutrition-related messages at the point of purchase or general marketing about the programs during new employee orientation.
   6. Ensure the communication goes both ways. Ask employees for feedback and input to learn about their needs and interests. Use this to continuously refine the program.

   As employer-sponsored wellness programs continue to evolve, a mindset of continuous improvement, deepening the integration of health into organizational culture and open communication will help your employee wellness program thrive.

   This post was originally published on March 15, 2016, and updated on June 14, 2017.

How do you reduce absenteeism and presenteeism in your employees?

Maintaining a safe workplace and encouraging health and wellness in the workplace may be part of it, according to two recent studies.

CDC measures the cost of chronic conditions

In an October 2016 CDC report , researchers measured the costs of absenteeism in employees with five conditions — hypertension, diabetes, smoking, physical inactivity and obesity.

How costly were the missed workdays? In the billions of dollars.

The researchers estimated that each of the conditions cost employers more than $2 billion per year in excess absenteeism. The most expensive of these, obesity, was calculated at $11.2 billion. In their findings, hypertension caused the most missed workdays per employee and cost nearly $300 per employee per year.

For each condition, employees missed an estimated one to two workdays per year. Those with multiple conditions had more missed days.

Study finds workplace safety impacts job productivity

Another study, published in Health Affairs, measured productivity losses from another angle and found similar results to the CDC report.

The researchers looked at factors such as previous workers’ compensation claims, chronic health conditions and how physically or cognitively demanding a job was to measure health-related productivity losses. They then calculated the predicted costs of absenteeism and presenteeism per person per year.

The study, “Chronic Conditions, Workplace Safety, and Job Demands Contribute to Absenteeism and Job Performance,” found that these factors contributed to both absenteeism and presenteeism. The study was conducted by the Integrated Benefits Institute, Segue Consulting and the Colorado School of Public Health Center for Health, Work and Environment.

While absenteeism was measured in the number of sick hours taken in the last four weeks, the study authors acknowledge that presenteeism can be difficult to measure. Employees rated their poor job performance on a scale from 0 (best) to 10 (worst), and researchers converted the metrics into annual costs.

“There is good reason to believe that presenteeism — when employees come to work but perform at lower levels than usual because of health reasons — often accounts for more lost productivity than absenteeism,” they write.

Study findings:

• Chronic health conditions and previous workers’ compensation claims contribute to higher absenteeism and presenteeism.
• Workers with more chronic health conditions had proportionally more cases of absenteeism and presenteeism.
• Employees with physically demanding jobs reported higher absenteeism, while more cognitively demanding jobs were linked to presenteeism, and “presenteeism is highest when jobs are both physically and cognitively demanding.”
• The combination of multiple risk factors often led to increased absenteeism and presenteeism, such as employees who had both physically demanding jobs and a workers’ comp claim in the past year.
• Employees with none of these factors had lower presenteeism and absenteeism.

Recommendations to reduce absenteeism and presenteeism

Based on their findings, the researchers suggest strategies employers can use to reduce health-related productivity losses. Their recommendations include integrating and analyzing health and safety data, considering each worker’s job fit, and addressing safety and wellness in the workplace.

“If employers want to reduce health-related productivity losses, they should take an integrated approach to mitigate job-related injuries, promote employee health, and improve the fit between a worker’s duties and abilities,” the study says.

Because of the compounding effects of poor health and work injuries, an integrated workplace safety and wellness program could combat multiple risk factors at once.

A holistic, Total Worker Health approach can address the causes of absenteeism and presenteeism on multiple fronts.

What if instead of stressed and overwhelmed, your employees spent their days feeling calm and focused?

Your employees don’t leave their emotions and mental health concerns at the door when they come to work.

And sometimes the stress comes from the work itself. 1 in 3 working Americans reports being chronically stressed on the job, according to the American Psychological Association’s 2016 Work and Well-being Survey.

Stress and common mental health issues such as depression can have serious costs: Health care costs, missed days, lost productivity, turnover. If your employees can’t concentrate, they can’t do their best work. Employees’ mindset affects how well they do their jobs, how they respond to co-workers and how productive they are (or aren’t).

Wellness programs can lead to better mental health

Effective workplace wellness programs have been shown to boost employees’ mental health.

Research from UCLA  broke new ground by connecting participation in a workplace wellness program with enhanced mental health.

 

“This was the first study of a workplace wellness program that showed a clear link between improvement in physical health and improvements in mental health, quality of life, stress, and energy,” said study co-author Dr. David Merrill. “Participants reported improved feelings of calm, social satisfaction, ability to cope with stress, and an overall sense of well-being. They also reported improvement in their energy levels and better productivity at work.”

Yet traditional workplace wellness programs emphasize physical activity and nutrition while leaving out the mental and emotional facets of well-being — and they’re missing out on major components of wellness.

By addressing the topic from all angles, your workplace wellness program can take a comprehensive approach to employee well-being.

Include mindfulness for a comprehensive wellness program

Workplaces can build on successful physical wellness programs by incorporating a popular — and proven — technique for emotional health: mindfulness.

Mindful.org defines mindfulness  as: “the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.”

 

According to the research, mindfulness gets results. Numerous studies have found that mindfulness in the workplace offers tangible benefits, including:

• Improved productivity
• Reduced stress and anxiety
• Improved interpersonal relationships
• Improved concentration
• Reduced health care costs
• Lower blood pressure

By practicing mindfulness, employees learn to focus on one thing at a time. They’re better able to handle whatever comes their way without losing their cool.

Holistic wellness program trend continues

Since David Gelles’ book “Mindful Work”  came out in March 2015, mindfulness at work has taken off in popularity for companies large and small. A Fortune.com article  last year reported that employers offering mindfulness training may jump from 22 percent in 2016 to twice that many in 2017.

“By understanding the mind-body connection and treating both physical and emotional health, employers can increase productivity and lower health care costs through improved health outcomes,” according to the article.

 

 

Bringing mindfulness into the workplace

How do you begin to introduce mindfulness into the workplace?

While it may seem like “doing nothing,” the act of focusing on the present moment can be harder than it appears. It may be uncomfortable for co-workers to sit silently together. They may realize how rarely they slow down their thoughts during the busy-ness of the work day. And the first few minutes of stillness can feel like much longer.

Begin with education

Alan Kohll offers tips on implementing mindfulness at work . He recommends beginning with educating employees about what mindfulness is and its many benefits.

Guided meditations can walk beginners through the steps with easy-to-follow instructions.

Mindfulness takes practice

Kohll’s next steps are offering mindfulness classes and time to practice. Someone new to mindfulness may start out trying to practice for five minutes at a time, and then build up to longer sessions. A simple one-minute breathing exercise counts as mindfulness.

Just like physical exercise, where even a few minutes of movement is better than nothing, a few minutes spent practicing mindfulness can reap rewards.

More resources on mindfulness at work:

• Partnership for Workplace Mental Health
• 10 ways to be more mindful at work from Mindful.org