Smart
employers provide a wellness-supportive work environment and try to
nudge their employees into healthier lifestyle choices. They’re not
being nice, they’re being smart.
I used to work in local
Government. When I started, there was a ‘Rubbish’ department. It became
‘Refuse and Recycling.’ Last I heard, it had become ‘Waste
Minimisation.’ These aren’t just superficial labels, they represent a
shift in thinking. A similar shift has occurred when it comes to
wellness at work. It’s gone from ambulances at the bottom of cliffs
(sometimes literally) to prevention and a broadening of scope from the
merely physical and work-related.
I’ve worked with organisations
that offer subsidised gym memberships, 10,000 Step programmes and
reward-point-scoring health insurance schemes. In-house Occupational
Therapists teach posture and micro-pausing to the masses, ergonomic
furniture is installed while Sven the masseuse takes your shoulder
massage booking. I actually saw one company intranet’s homepage
announcing the boss was paying for a diet specialist to come in and
speak, although this was right next to an advert for the social club’s
fish ‘n’ chip evening. I love those situations, like my local
supermarket which had a sale bin of toothpaste right next to a sale bin
of chocolate bars – 5-for-$4! An aisle of value but also an aisle of
irony.
My point here is that even if you’re not an employer that
doles out massages and gym memberships, your workplace has a tremendous
capacity to affect your people’s physical and mental health one way or
the other. That some employers make efforts to bolster worker wellness
isn’t altruistic. They reap the benefits of attendance, attitude,
engagement, productivity and more. A study published in the U.S. Journal
of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that for every dollar a
worker’s illness cost, the average impact on their employer’s
productivity was $2.30. So, for example, preventing staff illnesses
causing $10,000 of medical costs could enhance your bottom line by
$23,000.
I read a book last Christmas called ‘The Blue Zone.
Lessons for living longer from those who’ve lived the longest’ by Dan
Buettner. He and his team have studied the four little pockets of
humanity where they have a ridiculously long length and quality of life.
(None are in New Zealand. They’re in Sardinia, Costa Rica, Japan and
California.) There’s a quick online quiz, after which it tells you how
long they reckon you’ll live if you keep going the way you’re going and
how long you
could live if you take their advice. Take the test
but do it with friends. (Ironically, doing it with friends is part of
their advice.)
I need to get a pet and at least one more friend at
‘organ-donor’ level. Otherwise, I’m pretty sweet. You might be
pleasantly surprised at their alcohol and exercise advice. Having a
reason to live is important and, for some, work can provide that.
Friendship is generally good for your health but there are different
levels of friend. I think we all know that. We might not have it written
down but we have a ‘friend matrix’ somewhere. When you’re a kid, you
need a friend with an X-Box. When you leave home, you need a friend with
a van to help you move. When you’re my age, you need a friend with a
spare (functional) kidney.
I'm doing a show in the 2013 New
Zealand International Comedy Festival. I'm not too sure if any / many of
my 'Brain-Based Boss' readers know that I also perform stand-up
comedy? Anyways, my show is based around this book 'The Blue Zones' and
is all about health. They do say laughter is the best medicine. My show
is called
'The Grin Reaper.'
In
2007, Gallup research found that “having a best friend at work”
increased the likelihood of someone being engaged at work by 700%. Sarah
Burgard from the University of Michigan has shown that job insecurity
(fear) causes more illness than actually losing a job. Disconnected
employees are more likely to get sick and more likely to miss work. A
study by the Confederation of British Industry estimated that fifteen
percent of illness days taken were not due to actual illnesses.
A
recent episode of TV’s ‘The Biggest Loser’ was filmed in New Zealand. I
presume New Zealand paid for this because it seemed that the phrase, “In
New Zealand” had to be said at least every ninety seconds. “I’m eating
an apple IN NEW ZEALAND.” “I never thought I’d be doing push-ups IN NEW
ZEALAND.”
There is a lot of time on screen of exercise, dieting
and dramatic weigh-ins which probably makes for good TV but is unlikely
to lead to ongoing long-term wellness-supportive lifestyle changes. What
does help are social proof, goals, regular non-judgemental
behaviour-based feedback and a sense of purpose. Not surprisingly
(hopefully), these things are also powerful drivers of workplace
behaviours that support not only wellness but productivity and
profitability.
An obese person sat next to me on the plane
recently. Despite he and I both paying for one seat, he was taking up a
good third of my space. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me IN
NEW ZEALAND.
