Companies not doing enough for wellness at the workplace

January 12th, 2012Wellness, Work Place Health0 comments

According recent studies, employees working for moderate to large companies feel that their employers are not doing enough to promote wellness in their work environment. There are many things a corporation can do and some are felt by the populace to be helpful while other are finding them to be lacking.

Many employees appreciate to some degree programs that focus on screening for heart disease, high cholesterol, hypertension and high blood pressure. Employees appreciate knowing their numbers are healthy and for those who have abnormalities, they can easily be referred to their clinic for management of these easily treated diseases.

Others are less satisfied with this sort of wellness program. They feel the employer is just identifying the potentially high risk employees with the idea that these employees may be later penalized for their health conditions.

Some employees set aside one day a year for discussion on nutrition and exercise. Nurses and exercise trainers can come in, discuss the advantages of healthy eating, teach better ways to eat and go over the most popular exercises an employee can do to lose weight or to maintain their health. Some employees feel this is enough but others question whether one day a year is sufficient to motivate employees to make major changes in their eating and exercise habits. If all that is done is discussion of the issues, employees can easily get bored and soon forget whatever it was they were taught.

Instead of a single day of nutrition and exercise, many employees would like to start an ongoing group in which the basics of healthy eating are discussed employees can share recipes and talk about their weight and eating habits. Exercise groups can be developed where employees exercise before or after work either alone or as a group so they can compare types of exercises, monitor their weight and learn how to be healthy in their daily lives throughout their life. They can avoid chronic illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and complications of high cholesterol and can avoid the medical management of these expensive diseases.

Some employees would like to have employers go even further and sponsor memberships to health spas and gymnasiums. They believe that these things can do the most to promote healthy activity and a healthy lifestyle. Unfortunately, memberships to health clubs can be expensive and the company would have to score a deal in order to afford this kind of health and wellness program.

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