I sat in on a presentation that Dan gave to a large company this past week. The wellness committee of the company was looking for advice from Dan on how to improve their current and future plans for their wellness program. There were many great topics that were brought up but three in particular I want to highlight.
The biggest and most important detail talked about was that for any wellness program to succeed in a company of any size, the boss man needs to understand the benefits and importance of a wellness program. What I mean by this is that the leader of the company or whoever has control over the budget and decisions needs to understand that the health of his employees is greatly affecting the outcome of the company.
I’ll give an example. Scotty, the CEO of Scotty’s Brewhouse , a restaurant with several locations around Indiana, is an extremely physically active guy who eats well and takes great care of himself. He understands how his own health affects his personal productivity and success in his work. Therefore, he wants his employees to do the same. He gives them a monthly amount to spend towards a gym membership. He also provides them with equipment to keep track of their calories, heart rate, etc. throughout the day.
The leader needs to appreciate health in order for a trickle down effect to occur in the corporate setting. The importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle will then be encouraged to the employees on a daily basis. Scotty along with other bosses are seeing impressive results from this.
They’ve noticed that their employees are overall happier people. I think we can all agree that being around happy people at work makes the job a heck of a lot easier too. While at work, employees will provide better service and work more productively to help the company. Many times this is because employees see that their bosses care about their health and happiness. Therefore, the employees will want to work harder for them in return. If you can develop a program to achieve this, the company is going to see fewer employees taking sick days and a high return on investment. Healthier employees lead to happier and more productive employees, which also leads to less turnover. Turnover can be the number one preventable expense by any company.
For a complete article on how health translates to wealth check this out: More Health More Wealth
The second point I wanted to highlight for the success of a wellness program is that there has to be a support system. It’s so much easier to motivate yourself to work out when you know someone else is counting on you. Not only that, but also having someone who can motivate you and go through the ups and downs with.
It’s been proven that humans thrive when they are surrounded by people who are going to support their healthy lifestyle. Therefore, for any wellness program to succeed a sense of camaraderie needs to be developed in and out of the work place. When people are encouraging each other, going to the gym, and eating well together, a sense of camaraderie will be established that will help the company thrive. Any one in the group metabolic conditioning classes at Force Barbell will testify to this. Clients are motivated by the coaches and other people members in the class. It’s a supportive atmosphere of educational coaching. In turn, this leads to the success of everyone in the group.
The third point I want to make is that a wellness program needs to be realistic and effective. Too often there is a combination of unrealistic expectations combined with ineffective methods of achieving change.
Some things take hard work. Fat loss is one of those things. I am specifically mentioning fat loss because that is the target of many wellness programs. It’s not going to come easy to everyone so realistic expectations and goals should be set. Losing 30 pounds in 30 days isn’t one of them. Effective methods of this fat loss should be implemented as well. A program that involves walking 15 minutes a day is probably not going to be enough. It might be an expectation of some employees to lose weight by simply adding in 15 minutes of walking or jogging during a lunch break. Although some might see results with this effort, more than likely it will take more effort to see a serious change.
At Force Barbell a proper mix of strength training and conditioning is put together for clients. Strength training is often overlooked in a fat loss program. Many believe that only aerobic activity should be done to lose fat. Building muscle by strength training produces much better results than aerobic activity. Clients a Force Barbell don’t just come in and run for 20 minutes. They begin each session with self myofascial release with a foam roller, a dynamic warm up to properly engage and mobilize the muscles, an appropriate strength program, and conditioning work to complete the session. As you can see, a lot more is involved in this programming than just a long bout of aerobic work. Through this, better results will accompany and much more fun will be had!
To learn more about this check out this humorous piece: 9 Reasons to Olympic Lift for a Better Physique
To sum this all up, a healthy lifestyle should be promoted through leaders in the workplace who provide the support for a realistic and effective wellness program that encourages all employees to work as a team. If this can be accomplished, the company will benefit in more ways than previously thought.
Live Light Lift Heavy
Melissa