We’re at one of our favorite annual meetings this week exploring future trends in health and wellness. As a result, today’s section on You In Your Workplace is longer than usual. Enjoy…
My Question to You:
Are you getting your money’s worth out of your life?
Seriously, think about it. When you decide to choose say Burger King versus Broccoli, what’s your return on investment? Consider the emotional and physiological costs as well as caloric costs and actual dollars spent.
I challenge you to an exercise in “cost-benefit analysis.” Don’t groan. Try me because I need to know if you are telling the honest truth when you say, “being healthy is expensive.” Define expensive. Really. Start with food. In the next few days, look at the cost of healthy calories vs unhealthy. By healthy I mean fruits and veggies, high-fiber whole grains, lean (and local) protein, omega-3 fats, and low-fat dairy.
Take the challenge with me. Let’s do it together and report back on what we find. Remember to include all costs, not just dollars; after all, we are what we eat and what is your “vitality” worth to you? See below for some resources to help you analyze. Read on for more on vitality at work…
You In Your Workplace
Next question: Are you getting your money’s worth from your wellness program?
Musings from Dr. Edington’s 31st Health Management Research Center (HMRC) “Wellness in the Workplace” conference:
“…yet out of a bottomless vitality, they continued to thrive and develop.” – Martin Luther King Jr
I’ve just spent two inspiring days with several employee wellness strategists – award winning practitioners, most with 20-plus years of industry experience. We’ve been working our behinds off for years now, trying to capture your attention, handing you a good chance to thrive at work.
To gain a window into your lives, employers require us to prove that our programming initiatives will give them a return on their investment. I’m all for accountability. The rub is, out of fear we won’t be rehired, we’ve been measuring the wrong returns. Too much time has been spent chasing individual risks and shoving solutions in people’s faces. If we can just get Sally to take her asthma meds she’ll stay out of the ER. If we can get Ron to exercise he’ll avoid a heart attack. A noble but incomplete road. The horse is out of the barn. Chasing defects is a disease model. We’re in wellness, people! We are in the business of the good life – the life employees need in order to stay energetic, committed, highly productive workers.
Ron isn’t avoiding exercise because he needs a slap. How can we ask him to exercise after work when we’re sending him home frazzled and exhausted? And who knows what awaits him at home? The problem runs far deeper than single risks. Risks travel in a posse that represent the collective symptoms of our frenetic world, a portrait of a medical system careening us toward bankruptcy.
Dr. Dee Edington, founder of the HMRC, who retires this year after more than 35 years of research, challenges us to ask a new question… “What is the real value of health? Of vitality? Of energy?” If we’re committed to the answer, our efforts become completely about living life fully, finding greater depth and range in our goals or dreams. We can measure values, cultural support, health status and resiliency just as well as, if not better than, we can measure medical burden. Furthermore, through the robust research of our industry guru, Edington, we’re quite clear that costs follow quality of life exactly as they follow risks.
In short… Risks don’t develop in a vacuum. They happen in the context of our complex, very real lives. Our vision must move toward applicable resiliency skill building with intrinsic rewards and cultures where our well-being is not just the easy but the only road. In so doing, we can’t help but beat back the complications that arise from an overworked, sedentary, service driven and therefore emotionally drained workforce. Vitality is what we must chase now, says the good doctor. As he moves onto much deserved retirement, we humbly grasp the torch to carry on his contribution to countless lives. What’s the ultimate end game? Make a difference.
Thank you Dee for being so good at doing exactly that. Journey on and be well.
See you on the PATH Ahead, with vigor!
Food resources: