Well-being in Business
You can find a multitude of sources agreeing that well-being programs for companies provide better employee morale and, thus, better productivity and cost savings. These programs cover not only programs and benefits that help employees increase physical activity, but also those that help manage employee stress and assess employee engagement. Typically, they include weight-loss programs, meditation resources, healthy on-site food resources, and flexible work arrangements such as telecommuting.
Overall, CEOs either are increasing or keeping their companies’ budgets for well-being programs, and they’re approving efforts to look for new ways to keep their workforces holistically healthy and more engaged. Cost savings are a hugely important benefit of wellness, and more comprehensively, well-being programs. A 2014 Harvard Business Review study of 20 companies found an average annual health-cost increase of just 1-2% for companies with wellness programs, compared with a 7% national average, according to Fortune.
Blue Zones Project
So let’s look at an even larger radius of people promoting the idea of well-being. Blue Zones Project is a communitywide well-being improvement initiative found across the globe, and just happens to be a part of Fort Worth’s Healthiest City Initiative. Blue Zones Project studied rare longevity hotspots around the world to discover what people could do to live longer, healthier, happier lives. Cities, along with Fort Worth, are joining the project to help transform their communities into areas where the healthy choice is easy and people live longer with a higher quality of live.
Within Blue Zones, individuals, businesses and communities pledge to make healthy choices following the Power 9, or the nine secrets of longevity. I’ll let you research more on those secrets, but to summarize these ideas: move naturally, eat wisely, connect and belong, and find a purpose. If place of work can join the larger communities, then we’ll find people discovering it’s easy to achieve a state of well-being and live longer, healthier lives.
Executives
I want to challenge my fellow executives in North Texas: are you following your company’s well-being programs? Are you finding ways to stay active, be fit and able to handle day-to-day stresses? I’ll be writing more on strategies to help the busy executive maintain an active, healthy and higher quality lifestyle. Stay tuned.