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Work Smart Corporate Wellness Blog
This Work Smart Corporate Wellness Blog highlights articles from our Corporate eBrief, Path To Wellness that has been publishing employee wellness information since 2002. It focuses on employee and corporate wellness strategies for the beginner to the seasoned professional. Our hope is that it will provide you with how-tos and update you on significant research and statistics that may assist you in your wellness initiatives. For specific wellness topics, use the search feature at the top of this website.
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We welcome your input, your questions and your best practices.
Wellness Budget It’s tough. As wellness practitioners it can be very difficult to justify your wellness programs through a return-on-investment lens. You know it is the ‘right thing to do’, even if the ROI is not easily or immediately seen. To ensure viability and sustainability of your wellness programs, a clear understanding of the budgeting process is needed. Budgeting has three distinct areas: budget principles, budget justification and budget sustainability Budgeting Principles: How is your budget decided? • Top-down budget planning? – This is where the wellness department is given a finite dollar amount and you must run your program within that defined limit. You decide which programs are most important and how to include new initiatives. •...
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Many managers and team leaders, like yours, still don’t have the understanding or the resources to help employees after they have taken leave for depression, anxiety, addiction or other mental-health issues. Thousands of workers each year do not return to work and end up on permanent disability because of this lack of understanding. Previously, stigma and a lack of knowledge, prevented many workplace health and safety programs from including mental-health issues. More than a decade ago, the Global Business and Economic Roundtable Roadmap to Disability Management, presented a wide range of recommendations for detecting mental illness, and reducing the workplace factors that could cause or contribute to it. It placed more responsibility on employers in helping mentally disabled employees return to work....
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Is Your Workplace Doing Enough To Protect Your Employees? “When one fears that nothing will be done or that they will not be taken seriously, sexual harassment can run rampant in an organization.” The Canadian Labour code defines sexual harassment as any conduct, comment, gesture, or contact of a sexual nature that is likely to cause offence or humiliation to any employee; or that might, on reasonable grounds, be perceived by that employee as placing a condition of a sexual nature on employment or on any opportunity for training or promotion. Sexual harassment is unwelcome and unwanted, yet 50% of Canadian women say that they have experienced sexual harassment over their careers, making it commonplace. (Insights West) Of the...
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“It’s The Best Time Of The Year”…or so the song goes. The holidays are here and it is time to focus on wellness and fun, but for many employees, the holidays are often filled with anxiety, dread and guilt. As an employer, you can control some of the variables that create holiday stress. Start by minimizing overtime, ensuring realistic deadlines and reminding people of the resources that are available to them such as their Employee Assistance Program or community agencies. Try giving your team a holiday pick-me-up from the hustle and bustle of the season. Promote health and wellness in your organization by trying out some of these low or no cost ideas: Promote Hydration. Bring Your Own Water Bottle Day...
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When designing your comprehensive workplace wellness program, it is essential that you build evaluation into the process. If it is not considered right at the beginning, it will be hard to measure whether or not your initiatives are truly effective and worthwhile. Step One – Determine Benchmarks Initial research should examine: Employee activity levels before the program is started Employee health Current costs of illness to benefit programs Stress levels Absenteeism patterns Employee satisfaction Retention rates Productivity and performance Some of these can be assessed through your initial Employee Health Assessment Survey, while others would come from your HR data. ******************* Step Two – Measurement After the program has been running for at least a year, follow-up research should be...
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