Tag Archives: ROI

Health vs. Wellness – Avoiding Health Presenteeism

October 8, 2017employee performance, well-beingbiometrics, blood pressure, blood sugar, corporate health programs, diabetes, digestive health, engagement, genomic testing, Global corporate chalenge, happy employees, Health vs. wellness, healthcare providers, inflammation, mapping our DNA, medical diagnostics, metabolic syndrome, optimizing our immune system, oxidative stress, performing employees, pre-diabetes, predictor of productivity, presenteeism, production of serotonin, ROI, role emotions play in business, Rx for health, science of happy, stress, talent retention, wellnessBestinCorporateHealth

Health Vs. Wellness…What is the Difference?

Health vs. wellness, the answer is in the past and present and creating a better future.
I heard a brilliant expression from a colleague this week – a number of years ago a doctor told her she was healthy, not well. What is the difference?
Healthy: not diseased…… Wellness brings out the deeper meaning of health, which can be glossed over in health programs. By differentiating between health vs. wellness, we expose the many underlying health saboteurs, which unknowingly compromise our health.

Health vs. wellness wellness programs Best in corporate health — Health vs. Wellness A symbiosis for social, emotional & physiological engagement

Think of wellness as the opportunity for health engagement. The word “health” conjures up visions of restrictive, long lists of ” I shouldn’t”, no fun to many people. Wellness can provide the physiological, emotional and social engagement and camaraderie for sustainability and adherence to a health and wellness program…and ROI.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defined health in it’s 1948 constitution as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” Sounds Utopic.
In pursuit of the broader WHO goals for health evolved our healthcare system. The healthcare system is financially depleted, and has become a “sick care” system. We diagnose, try to fix illness. Whether we get caught up in blaming the politicians for our healthcare crisis, we cannot ignore the erosion is largely due to unnecessary illness. Going forward, to achieve the intent of healthcare, we need to be inclusive of a thoroughly articulated view, role and definition of wellness.

Healthcare and medical diagnostics are vital, however, we need to all become our own advocates – and take charge of constantly seeking further wellness. Looking at out health is more of a current status. And whereas we know that certain diagnoses such as metabolic syndrome, pre-diabetes, carcinoma in situ, are definite calls to more proactive action -the goal of wellness is to prevent the pre-diseased state.
What is wellness? Wellness is the #1 opportunity we have in our lives. We have hundreds of options within our control to prevent even a pre-diseased state.
Take a look at these relationships:

health vs. wellness
exercise vs. physical activity
diet vs. nutrition
sex vs. intimacy

They are all often used interchangeably. Comparing does not necessitate an adversarial tone, rather, there are nuances that suggest a symbiotic relationship. They are subsets within each other, necessary partners promoting each other.

Medical diagnostics catch disease or impending disease. Genomic testing is our only diagnostic to provide the ultimate wellness, by mapping our DNA. Going to our healthcare providers, being told everything looks good, nothing is wrong – is fantastic news not to be taken for granted.We all know, we sill might not feel well. We might:

have a haze about us…something is just not right
feeling stressed and drained
erratic appetite
Feeling a lack of control in ourselves
Not being as focused, energized and productive as we used to be
Don’t feel rested and restored
Moodiness
Or, we could just be in robomode- so busy in our day to day routines, surviving each day and task as it comes, we are unaware that we are not optimized

This general malaise in health is what I call health presenteeism. We know work presenteeism is being at work in body – but not being fully there in mind – not fully functioning and is usually attributed to health issues.

Health vs. Wellness – overcoming Health Presenteeism…..

Digging Deeper
We all know the Rx for health: Don’t smoke, eat right, exercise, good sleep, manage stress. Go for regular physician check ups. Imperative. Why are these imperative to wellness? Let’s start digging.

Optimizing our digestive health. We all know the cliche we are what we eat. What his really implies is we are what we eat, digest and absorb. Our digestive tract serves many complex functions of our health. Hippocrates said “all disease begins in the gut”. Our gut performs an infinite number of daily tasks including digestion, absorption, influencing our mood with the production of serotonin, is the first step of our immune system……Our digestive tract takes thousands of attacks daily from poor food choices, digestive strain, medications, ingestion of toxins, viruses and bacteria, stress…and a central focus of our wellness efforts must be on optimizing our digestive tract.
Eliminating physiological stressors in our lives.
Oxidative stress and inflammation: Proven repeatedly to be at the root of all of our chronic illnesses.
Optimizing our Immune system
Understanding what it takes to create a healthy inner ecosystem.
The science of happy. The #1 predictor of productivity is happiness. Happy is far more than accomplishing our goals. Happiness also must have wellness embedded into its roots. How does this impact our wellness programs? A 2016 study by Global Corporate Challenge (GCC) after surveying employees from 500 organizations in 70 countries found happy employees are more productive at work. The findings confirm the role emotions play in business, and that happiness is critical for productivity and talent retention and not a job perk or something that is just “nice to have.” The connection was clear: happy employees are high performing employees.
Enjoying and embracing wellness. None of us are looking for another miserable task in our lives. Wellness practices must be engaging, integrated into a person’s life, welcomed, and perceived as fun and of great value. If we are not feeling the rewards of our wellness efforts, and we feel these practices are another strain, they are erratic and short lived. Wellness should be freedom and liberation, not rigid, restrictive or inflexible.

Wellness is a state of mind. It is a desire to optimize our health, a partner in our raison d’être, a joie de vivre. Through wellness we put a jump in our steps and feel capable of compartmentalizing and managing the many challenges life inevitably serves.

When appreciating the symbiosis of health vs. wellness, it’s easier for us to appreciate why
our blood pressure and blood sugar are normal, our diagnostics and biometrics appear acceptable – but something is just not right. It must be stress is the usual conclusion – Yes – it is stress – but we need to look at stress at a much deeper level. True wellness is helping everyone to become their own health ambassador, helping them understand the many levels of wellness, far deeper than the superficialities. Even if we are eating right, exercising – there is great variance there, and maybe our overall wellness choices, when put together – are not nourishing us at the control centers of our body – our cells. Wellness comes from much deeper than our outer facade. Wellness comes from our cell-being.

Help control workforce oxidative stress: 7 patents, 24 peer reviewed studies on pubmed, accolades from American Heart Association, Mayo Clinic, National Institute on Aging….Washington State: “may well become the most extraordinary therapeutic and most extraordinary preventative breakthrough in the history of medicine.”

Cell-being creates our inner magic kingdom that is hostile to disease, and takes the cacophony of our daily lives and creates a symphonic inner ecosystem.

Personalized Health vs. wellness programs…..Yes…..We get VERY personal……right down to the DNA….

Corporate health programs…what a wonderful way to affordably make the world a happier, healthier place.

Shira Litwack, Corporate Program Designer — Shira Litwack – The Corporate Happy Place medical fitness professional, Cancer Exercise Specialist , Medical Exercise Specialist, Holistic Nutritionist

Articles featured in: ezines, ArticlesInk, European Registry of Exercise Professionals, The National Post, Investment Executive Magazine, Directory of Greater Toronto, Canadian Leukemia & Lymphoma Association, Prostate Cancer Canada, Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, Anytime Fitness, Today’s Black Woman, Today’s Seniors, Medical Fitness Network, FORCE (Facing Our Risk of Cancer Empowered), Willow (Breast & Hereditary Cancer Support),Myeloma Canada, Cancer Exercise Training Institute, Urban Poling for Breast Cancer, ROW – Recovery on Water for Breast Cancer, Sirius XM Doctor Radio

Employee Incentives for Health Promotion

April 4, 2017employee performance, well-beingbest practice companies, disincentives, employee incentives, goal of a wellness program, health centric, health culture, health promotion, Health risk assessments, human capital management, Labor statistics, Maslow theory of human motivation, rewarding employees, ROI, stretching the budget, wellness platforms, workforce optimization, workplace health, workplace productivityBestinCorporateHealth

Incentivizing Employee Incentives – Fuelling Employee Wellness Programs

Employee incentives can solve the age old problem of wellness programs….You can lead the horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. Many companies offer wellness programs, but are not getting the compliance required to achieve success – healthy people and healthy profits.

Sadly, being healthy and more productive, lowering Ldl and curbing diabetes is not enough of an incentive for people to comply with wellness programs. Everyone is busy, and many people are skeptical due to previous attempts at a “healthy lifestyle” aka learned helplessness. Few programs address the daunting, intimidating, frustrating challenges- the many skills, time, organizational design for change. They are rarely motivational nor supportive to encourage people to act.

Enter employee incentives – or I should say appropriate employee incentives.

According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

“When it comes to health promotion programs, it’s wise to avoid the “build it and they will come” strategy. A wealth of research tells us that people need motivation to adopt healthier behaviors and, especially in the early stages. Employee incentives can jump-start participation in programs and can encourage workers to complete health risk assessments (HRAs), quit smoking, exercise more, or lose weight.”

The choice of incentives is often counter productive:

Raising health care premiums for lack of compliance? Is that not punishment disguised as incentive? This is what we call a disincentive, not incentive. Excellent for encouraging dissatisfied, frustrated employees.

Cash? Sorry – a fleeting moment ….and the expectations will be for more and more, and create a downright resentment when monetary expectations are not met.

Incentives need to be based on support of the wellness program, support of the long term intentions and success of the program….is the intention to claim “we offer a wellness program “- or is actually improving employee health and creating a health centric corporate health culture.

Sounds so obvious…but just not done

employee incentives for health promotion — The largest part of our day is at work. A health centric corporate health culture can have a profound effect on health promotion. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Your incentive program should represent, lead the corporate health culture and employee camaraderie. Creating that culture is #1 in terms of long term adherence, success of the program reaping the benefits of health in the workplace, productivity…..that all important ROI. On average, people invest 35-40% of their lives at work.

It costs about 20% of an employee’s annual salary to replace that employee.

At a minimum, perks should help retain employees. The best companies, however, create incentives that demonstrate the company’s health culture and inspire employees to health, engagement and productivity.

Some basic principles of human motivation:

When Abraham Maslow created his Theory of Human Motivation in 1943, he identified five levels of motivation or five needs that humans strive to satisfy:

Survival
Safety
Social
Esteem
Fulfilment

Human capital management, workforce optimization – it really comes down to providing health, happiness, fulfillment – really everything Maslow described in 1943.

Incentivizing Incentives……

Make it personal…The employee’s perception -is it about his/her health and happiness, first and foremost, as a person, not as your employee
The trick is to first make sure that incentives don’t unfairly penalize workers who can’t or don’t want to participate. Employers must use incentives to encourage both fit employees—as well as those with health risks such as obesity, high cholesterol or elevated blood sugar—to participate.
Don’t make it just about money. Money can make employees unhappy if they’re not sufficiently compensated to their expectations. Money has not been shown to lead to long term motivation, satisfaction or performance.
Appeal to the pack animal side of human behavior – or as Maslow said social and esteem. Creating that corporate health culture for employees to thrive, be part of the pack, camaraderie, investment in incentives is a perfect medium to nurture the corporate pack
Institutionalize your employee incentives. Again – applying the wisdom of the pack. While it’s sometimes thought to reward employees uniquely and personally, it’s can be lethal. Haphazard rewards are inefficient and can create confusion, unhealthy competition, a perception of favouritism for employees. Transparency is key.
Measure it . As we mentioned, rewarding employees isn’t just good for morale; it’s good for the bottom line. That’s why you should measure the ROI for your perks whenever possible.
Don’t forget your culture. Consistency – the power of the incentives should be respected and emanate a love and reverence to other aspects of the functioning of the company, not restricted to wellness….think about that one! Your incentive structure is a reflection of your company culture. Your perks program is an excellent way to make your company stand out.
Management needs to demonstrate a commitment to health, participate in the incentive program, camaraderie and continually reinforce the corporate health culture.

Companies are advised to avoid depending on incentives as a long-term strategy for getting employees to maintain healthy behaviors. The goal of wellness programs should be to encourage employees to value the physiological and social rewards of adopting and maintaining healthy behaviors—which will provide energy and focus for work, preventing injury and illness, feeling a greater sense of physical and psychological wellbeing.

An employee Incentive for health promotion must actually encourage the desired results, health – which will ultimately drive behavior creating a health centric corporate culture.

Incentives are a key part of workplace health promotion programs, but they are only one piece that is necessary for companies to achieve a culture of health. When they are wielded punitively or used to shift healthcare costs to sicker employees, incentives become a liability. Choose employee incentives, not disincentives. Best practice companies understand this and work hard to spread the message that improved health is its own greatest reward. Health is wealth – personal wealth and corporate wealth.

Best In Corporate Health…Stretching the Budget….Yes, Your company can have it all – Health Risk Assessments, Wellness Platforms, Coaching, Integrating wellness technology, Incentivizing Employee Incentives…….

Chief Health Enthusiast – Best In Corporate Health

Employee Wellness Toronto, Ontario – But offered worldwide!

Shira is regularly consulted by Naturopaths, oncologists, health coaches on cancer exercise and exercise adherence.
Has assembled over 20 health and fitness professionals with varying specialties to bring to corporate wellness programs
Platforms include: Speaking, One-one/group health coaching, Retreats, Course development for in house delivery, Metrics to measure success available, Partners always included
Now offering live interactive webinars, just as if each participant has a personal health coach – making corporate wellness programs affordable to all.
Shira has been interviewed & published in hundreds of resources over the last 12 years:

Cancer Awareness: ROI in Lives and Dollars

February 11, 2017employee performance, well-beingAmerican Cancer Society, Best in Corporate Health, Breast Friends, cancer awareness, cancer diagnoses, care management, chronic disease, chronic illnesses, chronic inflammation, corporate health, employee wellness programs, employees with cancer, inflammation, Integrated Benefits Institute, National cancer awareness month, oxidative stress, presenteeism, prevent cancer, ROI, workforce healthBestinCorporateHealth

Cancer Awareness – Measuring ROI in Lives and Dollars

February is National Cancer Awareness Month. Newly released data from the American Cancer Society, for 2016, reports:

1,685,210 new cancer diagnoses
595,690 cancer deaths

According to the CDC, 75% of chronic illness can be adjusted with lifestyle – however, where this fall shorts is a completely incomplete explanation of lifestyle. We all know certain basics – Don’t smoke, eat right & exercise. That’s great – but even if we are following that advice, it falls painfully short – and we are all left wondering …why do we still get sick.

According to 2014 research from IBI, Integrated Benefit Institute, a leading workforce health and productivity research and measurement organization, cancer costs businesses $19,000/100 employees per year.

Cancer Costs:

In lost work time & treatment: $19,000/100 employees/year
Lost work time and presenteeism $10,000/ 100 workers
Medical and pharmacy treatments $9,100
Absent 3.8 more days per year
Lose the equivalent of 1.8 more days per year to presenteeism.
At any given time, about 1/4 of employees with a history of cancer are in treatment.
Employees with cancer have an average of approximately four other conditions that complicate care management strategies

Impact on productivity, co-morbid conditions:

depression (16% of employees with cancer)
chronic fatigue (22%)
obesity (19%)
anxiety (14%)
chronic back or neck pain (23%)
high cholesterol (30%)
and hypertension (24%).

“Cancers present complex challenges for the workplace. At a basic, human level, a cancer diagnosis is a frightening, sometimes emotionally devastating, event. It is natural that co-workers and supervisors will want to provide support to a friend and colleague when told he or she has cancer. At the same time, balancing privacy and workplace accommodation is a critical, but sensitive, issue. Many employees with cancer will frequently feel too sick to work, while others report that remaining on the job keeps them ‘connected’ and provides a sense of routine as they undergo treatment,”

(Past) IBI President Tom Parry, PhD.

At the root of all of our chronic illnesses is the reality of oxidative stress, and a resulting condition of chronic inflammation. Nurturing our cell-being – sadly, is not incorporated into employee wellness programs, except at Best In Corporate Health, aka, Cell-Being.com.

Cancer awareness Shira Litwack, corporate health provider, on Voice America Oxidative Stress — Oxidative Stress – The Root Cause of Chronic Illness

Oxidative Stress: The imbalance between the production of free radicals in the body and the ability of the body to neutralize / detoxify their harmful effects with antioxidants. Some chemistry geek – Free Radicals: A molecule that has a single unpaired electron in an outer shell ….Reactive Oxygen Species. Our redox state, the balance in our body between free radicals and antioxidants, determines the status of our inner biology, our cell-being. Uncontrolled oxidative stress can lead to inflammation – which a certain amount is necessary – however chronic inflammation has been proven to be at the root of all of our chronic illnesses….cancer, diabetes, heart disease, depression, Alzheimers, macular degeneration, respiratory, our ability to focus, mood disturbances, autoimmune disease……….

Cancer awareness is all health awareness. Building cancer awareness into our employee wellness programs will provide a brilliant ROI, measured in both dollars, and lives.

Author…..Living a Life to Prevent Cancer is the Healthiest Lifestyle of all…..

Shira Litwack….Measuring & Maximizing Employee Cell-Being

Cancer awareness cancer in the workplace - Shira Litwack on Breast Friends Voice America — Shira talking with Becky & Sharon on Breast Friends, Voice America on Oxidative Stress and inflammation

Chief Health Enthusiast – Best In Corporate Health

Employee Wellness Toronto, Ontario – But offered worldwide!

Shira is regularly consulted by Naturopaths, oncologists, health coaches on cancer exercise and exercise adherence.
Has assembled over 20 health and fitness professionals with varying specialties to bring to corporate wellness programs
Platforms include: Speaking, One-one/group health coaching, Retreats, Course development for in house delivery, Metrics to measure success available, Partners always included
Now offering live interactive webinars, just as if each participant has a personal health coach – making corporate wellness programs affordable to all.
Shira has been interviewed & published in hundreds of resources over the last 12 years: