Employee wellness programs with a local touch

Employers in this area have local options when seeking a wellness program to keep their employees healthy and engaged. Renown Health and Saint Mary’s each offer a wellness program that an employer can tailor to his or her needs and to those of employees.

Amanda LaTorre, fitness manager, and Natalie Cooks, health coach supervisor, explained that Saint Mary’s has developed a wellness program that they can customize for organizations with different age demographics and different philosophies. They emphasize that the key to a program’s success is employee engagement, and maintaining engagement requires programs in which employees are interested.

Their method for developing a program begins with a needs assessment. Saint Mary’s surveys employees on their interests and on the kind of program that they want. The survey takes into account work schedules and work environment, preferences for the time of day to participate and for the way to receive wellness information, such as online or in another electronic format. The survey also elicits the employees’ wellness priority, for example, fitness or nutrition.

“The nice thing about the needs assessment is that we can customize it to include whatever information that the company wants,” said LaTorre. For example, the company might want information on chronic diseases among employees. The information on individual employees is kept confidential, so the company sees only aggregate data.

After analyzing the data, Saint Mary’s reports to the company with a recommendation. The recommended program matches the readiness of the employees to participate in a wellness program with the objectives of the company, such as to decrease absenteeism or reduce the amount spent on diabetes medications. In doing this, Saint Mary’s “comes up with a unique program for” an employer, said Cooks.

Since Saint Mary’s is local, they can have a face-to-face interaction with employees and leaders, thereby understanding a company’s environment and its specific needs. This face-to-face inquiry helps create a more personalized approach that truly applies to the challenges faced by that organization. It creates a comprehensive wellness program that will create change and show a return on investment.

Warren Lee, Jr., CEAS, health and wellness coordinator for Hometown Health, the health insurance division of Renown Health, provides a wellness program based on Healthy Tracks. This wellness web portal is locally staffed and customizable. It offers self-management tools to help employees reduce their health risks and achieve greater engagement in their personal health status.

When people take the online health assessment, they become more aware of their health status. “They find things they didn’t know were there,” said Lee.

With Healthy Tracks, employees can take an online assessment at any time. They also can track their food and exercise, use meal planners and monitor biometrics, such as blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol and weight. The portal is a resource that employees can use, instead of just visiting some other health website without knowing its data source. It offers a variety of services in one location where an employee can find certified, correct answers. The Healthy Tracks Web site even syncs with Fitbit and Garman devices.

The program includes wellness workshops and quarterly wellness challenges, “It is really a tool designed to get people engaged,” said Lee.

Being local and part of Hometown Health, Lee can assign a dedicated wellness coordinator who will strategize, plan and implement a custom wellness program such as a three-year wellness strategy for one company. A wellness coordinator also can visit clients to help them recruit wellness champions, who promote the program from within the company.

A wellness program benefits the employer as well as employees. “Productivity is the biggest thing,” said Cooks. Healthier people are not dealing with chronic diseases “so you have more present, effective employees at work.” While it is hard to find a number for it, “you know that the relationship exists: having more effective employees equals a better bottom line,” said Cooks.

Employees are happy to come to work in an environment that promotes a healthy, balanced lifestyle. It also can affect employee retention: Baby Boomers will continue to work if they are healthier and happier at work. A healthy work environment is even more important to Generation X and Millennials. They want a balanced lifestyle and to work for something in which they can believe.

Cooks noted that self-funded employers will find a wellness program’s preventive health efforts vital: They help keep employees healthy so that the company is not incurring huge costs, such as for heart surgeries or cancer treatments.

Lee promotes Healthy Tracks as a wellness program that helps increase retention. “A strong employee wellness program also is a great tool to use in employee recruitment,” Lee said. A healthier workforce helps decrease overall health care costs. “So if people are actively managing their health care, you have a healthier workforce in general.”

The Hometown Health wellness program offers onsite lunch-and-learn sessions, which can help employers reduce absenteeism. Lee also gave an example of the problem of “presenteeism.” An employee with allergies might have lower productivity because of the sedating effects of an allergy medication. As an answer to this problem, Lee offers a popular allergy awareness class, which can help the employee manage his or her allergy and reduce the need for medication.

To start participating in the Saint Mary’s wellness program, employers can contact Natalie Cooks at 775-770-7503 or NCooks@primehealthcare.com. The costs can be modified based on the level of involvement by Saint Mary’s, from having them run the entire program to only providing wellness content.

Hometown Health offers the Healthy Tracks program to its fully insured clients at no charge. Self funded employers groups can receive a custom quote based on the needs of the group. Call 775-982-6644, and Warren Lee or Peggy Nipp will arrange to give a presentation. Then they will discuss a phased-in implementation of the program.

As new businesses move to northern Nevada and established businesses expand, they can build a healthier and more productive workforce with the help of these local wellness programs.