Employers can implement health initiatives to take wellness to a new level
A lunch and learn on healthy eating? Check. An employee assistance program? Check. A health club subsidy, a lunch-hour walking group, healthy options in the cafeteria, flu shots in the November, Weight Watchers in January? Done that, got it, check, check, check.
In some organizations, wellness programs look like they had been put together with not much thought and even less expectation of having any impact other than letting the employers say they value wellness just as much as competitors.
But the organizations that want wellness to mean more than that – the organizations that strive to make wellness part of their culture – have to look at more than just what employees eat or how much they exercise. Companies also have to look at whether the work environment and management practices of the organization support or undermine wellness.
Building a culture of wellness requires employee trust, which in turn requires good communication as to why wellness is important, says Lydia Makrides, president and CEO of Creative Wellness Solutions, a Halifax-based service provider.
“It’s obviously not because you’re a philanthropic organization so you have to put it on the line. ‘We want you to be healthy for us.’”
Beyond that, the organization has to embed wellness in its strategic plan, and managers have to be evaluated on how much support they give employees for practising healthy behaviour and taking part in wellness initiatives, she says.
At Excellence Canada, formerly known as the National Quality Institute, Stan Murray, director of healthy workplace programs, says there are three key elements to wellness. The first is occupational health and safety, the second is healthy lifestyle practices, “and the third is the supportive environment — whether the workplace culture is one that makes sure people feel comfortable in their jobs, whether they feel comfortable working with management.”
Excellence Canada, a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization promoting quality and organizational excellence requires organizations to address wellness in all three aspects of wellness for its healthy workplaces certification program.
A similar broad-based approach to workplace wellness is seen at the Bureau de normalisation du Québec, the standards council in that province. Pfizer Canada, a Kirkland, Que.-headquartered pharmaceutical company with 3,000 employees, is one of the first companies to be certified under the bureau’s Healthy Enterprise -Elite certification. To achieve that, it has to address wellness in four areas of activity known to have a significant impact on employee health. These are lifestyle habits, work-life balance, work environment and management practices.
Under employees’ lifestyle habits, Pfizer Canada offers programs such as onsite fitness classes, a fitness subsidy, golf season prep program and a dietitian service.
“We have senior leadership sponsoring our activities, so that’s part of our leaders leading with their behaviour,” says Paule Letourneau, vice-president of human resources at Pfizer Canada. “It says to employees that we believe from the leaders on down how important it is to take care of our health. So as an employee I know that if at lunch I want to go to the gym or take a lunch-and-learn course, that I won’t be penalized.”
In the work-life balance category, the company provides an employee assistance program, onsite medical services such as lab tests and an onsite doctor. There’s also a valet service to help employees get their cars serviced during work hours; the employee only has to make the appointment, drop off her keys in an onsite drop box on the day of the appointment, and the car will be picked up and returned by the end of the work day. Supportive working environment means providing fitness and exercise rooms, healthy meals at the cafeteria and ergonomic evaluation.
Pfizer has policies that respect the employees’ life outside work. It strongly discourages scheduling any meeting before 9 a.m., during lunch and after 4 p.m. Also, large meetings attended by employees coming in from out of town should not be scheduled at 9 a.m. on Monday morning, because those employees would have to give up part of their weekend to travel. The company also discourages scheduling meetings after 1 p.m. on Friday, part of its flex Friday initiative which allows people to run errands or start their weekends early if they can make up the time on other days during the week.
An integrated structure is important, said Letourneau, but so is constant monitoring to make sure the program stays relevant to employees. In a recent example, her team has learned through employee feedback that some employees are interested in getting more help on stress management. That’s why she’ll be asking the management team to sign off on a new assessment program to understand the different sources of employee stress.
“We need to find out what is stressful. It may come from different sources, which means employees may have different needs. Do employees have clear understanding of roles and responsibilities? Maybe we need to educate managers on setting clear expectations, or maybe we need lunch-and-learns on managing stress and resilience. There are different tools that we have.”
The fact that a stress management initiative is put on the agenda at the leadership level, shows how involved senior managers are with the wellness program at Pfizer Canada, says Letourneau.
The program itself was created by senior management back in 2007, she adds.
That’s one of the reasons wellness is ingrained in the company culture and more than just a bunch of programs, she says.
“(The program) is not an example of a program that came from HR and that HR has to sell to senior management. This was a strategy that the leadership team developed from a value-proposition standpoint,” says Letourneau.
“We want employees to be healthy and performing at their best in the work environment. We want to retain and attract the best talent out there, and we feel an environment that supports employee wellness is what will helps us attract and retain.”
In some organizations, wellness programs look like they had been put together with not much thought and even less expectation of having any impact other than letting the employers say they value wellness just as much as competitors.
But the organizations that want wellness to mean more than that – the organizations that strive to make wellness part of their culture – have to look at more than just what employees eat or how much they exercise. Companies also have to look at whether the work environment and management practices of the organization support or undermine wellness.
Building a culture of wellness requires employee trust, which in turn requires good communication as to why wellness is important, says Lydia Makrides, president and CEO of Creative Wellness Solutions, a Halifax-based service provider.
“It’s obviously not because you’re a philanthropic organization so you have to put it on the line. ‘We want you to be healthy for us.’”
Beyond that, the organization has to embed wellness in its strategic plan, and managers have to be evaluated on how much support they give employees for practising healthy behaviour and taking part in wellness initiatives, she says.
At Excellence Canada, formerly known as the National Quality Institute, Stan Murray, director of healthy workplace programs, says there are three key elements to wellness. The first is occupational health and safety, the second is healthy lifestyle practices, “and the third is the supportive environment — whether the workplace culture is one that makes sure people feel comfortable in their jobs, whether they feel comfortable working with management.”
Excellence Canada, a Toronto-based not-for-profit organization promoting quality and organizational excellence requires organizations to address wellness in all three aspects of wellness for its healthy workplaces certification program.
A similar broad-based approach to workplace wellness is seen at the Bureau de normalisation du Québec, the standards council in that province. Pfizer Canada, a Kirkland, Que.-headquartered pharmaceutical company with 3,000 employees, is one of the first companies to be certified under the bureau’s Healthy Enterprise -Elite certification. To achieve that, it has to address wellness in four areas of activity known to have a significant impact on employee health. These are lifestyle habits, work-life balance, work environment and management practices.
Under employees’ lifestyle habits, Pfizer Canada offers programs such as onsite fitness classes, a fitness subsidy, golf season prep program and a dietitian service.
“We have senior leadership sponsoring our activities, so that’s part of our leaders leading with their behaviour,” says Paule Letourneau, vice-president of human resources at Pfizer Canada. “It says to employees that we believe from the leaders on down how important it is to take care of our health. So as an employee I know that if at lunch I want to go to the gym or take a lunch-and-learn course, that I won’t be penalized.”
In the work-life balance category, the company provides an employee assistance program, onsite medical services such as lab tests and an onsite doctor. There’s also a valet service to help employees get their cars serviced during work hours; the employee only has to make the appointment, drop off her keys in an onsite drop box on the day of the appointment, and the car will be picked up and returned by the end of the work day. Supportive working environment means providing fitness and exercise rooms, healthy meals at the cafeteria and ergonomic evaluation.
Pfizer has policies that respect the employees’ life outside work. It strongly discourages scheduling any meeting before 9 a.m., during lunch and after 4 p.m. Also, large meetings attended by employees coming in from out of town should not be scheduled at 9 a.m. on Monday morning, because those employees would have to give up part of their weekend to travel. The company also discourages scheduling meetings after 1 p.m. on Friday, part of its flex Friday initiative which allows people to run errands or start their weekends early if they can make up the time on other days during the week.
An integrated structure is important, said Letourneau, but so is constant monitoring to make sure the program stays relevant to employees. In a recent example, her team has learned through employee feedback that some employees are interested in getting more help on stress management. That’s why she’ll be asking the management team to sign off on a new assessment program to understand the different sources of employee stress.
“We need to find out what is stressful. It may come from different sources, which means employees may have different needs. Do employees have clear understanding of roles and responsibilities? Maybe we need to educate managers on setting clear expectations, or maybe we need lunch-and-learns on managing stress and resilience. There are different tools that we have.”
The fact that a stress management initiative is put on the agenda at the leadership level, shows how involved senior managers are with the wellness program at Pfizer Canada, says Letourneau.
The program itself was created by senior management back in 2007, she adds.
That’s one of the reasons wellness is ingrained in the company culture and more than just a bunch of programs, she says.
“(The program) is not an example of a program that came from HR and that HR has to sell to senior management. This was a strategy that the leadership team developed from a value-proposition standpoint,” says Letourneau.
“We want employees to be healthy and performing at their best in the work environment. We want to retain and attract the best talent out there, and we feel an environment that supports employee wellness is what will helps us attract and retain.”
