Many of us have lofty goals, not just for us, but for our employees. We will eat less. We will exercise more. We start out with great enthusiasm. We imagine our future selves as energetic, alert, and able to cope with the everyday stresses the workplace brings.

We have little trouble knowing what to do. It’s the actual doing it that makes things tricky. Workplace wellness programs offer rewards for good behavior. Nutritional and exercise information is important. But long-term habits don’t change overnight by simply having information presented to us.  Don’t you agree?

Workplace environment

I’m sure we can agree that a healthier workplace environment makes sense.

At one time the publishing industry was said to run on alcohol. Of course, three-martini lunches and smoking are long gone from the workplace. But at the time, few saw smoking at work as worth complaining about. It was normal, just like sitting in a chair all day at meetings, or in front of a computer.

Can you imagine a caffeine-free workplace? Yes, it’s hard to imagine. Yet caffeine is a powerful stimulant, along with its inevitable let down. If caffeine addiction wasn’t so widespread it wouldn’t be seen as normal. I want to point out here that your writer doesn’t abstain but is a moderate user.

Employers welcomed such a stimulant. It gave the illusion of promoting productivity, and in a sense it did ─ compared to how things used to be. In the days of the Industrial Revolution, the drink of choice at work was beer. Imagine! The point is that workplace orthodoxy changes over time.

Even small changes can lead in the right direction. How easy would it be for the office canteen to  cook with less salt? Can that vending machine sell healthy snacks?

Peer pressure

Our biology was not designed for us to sit at computers all day. We need to move about. Does the workplace environment encourage movement, or look at it as an aberration? Is there space to stretch? Is there any way of allowing employees some physical vigor during the work day? If no one previously exercised at work, then those that do will seem eccentric. Workplace wellness professionals must advocate for physical movement because peer pressure matters.

Fortunately, there are exercises designed for computer users. The University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey and the University of Oklahoma (OU) have licensed Easy Desktop Yoga, a workplace-wellness product, allowing employees to workout at their desks. OU ran a pilot  before expanding the program.

Exercise is gaining acceptance in the workplace. It hasn’t replaced caffeine yet, but this, like all changes, will happen gradually. The advantage to Easy Desktop Yoga is that it is easy. Making a small change is far more likely to lead to long-term habit change than grandiose plans.
Let’s make it easy.

Should employers cut workplace-wellness programs during the current economic downturn?

Clearly some employers are axing programs, according to Laura Pickering, executive director of the New York Business Group on Health.

Under stress most organisms revert to type. In business, this means short-term thinking. The hunkered-down defensive position is about survival. Anything that looks like a cost and can be cut, will be cut.

The downturn won’t last forever

However, enlightened management will have made provision for naturally occurring economic cycles. It’s at times like these that organizations demonstrate their commitment to employee well-being. The value in almost all companies today is the people who work there. The downturn won’t last forever. Sooner or later employees will have greater choices of where they want to work.

The living organization

We think of employees as being healthy or not, but the organization itself is a living entity. It has a predictable growth and decay pattern. New growth is more likely to happen when the organization is agile, flexible, and open to change.

Employee health is a long-term project. If workplace-wellness professionals can’t convince management that sick, poorly nourished, exhausted employees are not only unproductive, but are more likely to be a financial burden on the company, then it’s not the program that is at fault.

Consequences

What are the consequences of eliminating programs? Is this elimination permanent or temporary? Is the program costly in terms of money or time? This is an important distinction. When bosses want to eliminate a program what do they think they are saving? Would they be open to a program that costs time and not money?

Something is better than nothing

During a causal conversation I was told of a company whose employees would stretch in the hall for ten minutes twice a day. How expensive is that? It gave the employees a sense of community, fun, and well-being. Employees received a stamp in their wellness passport. At a certain number of stamps they were rewarded.

Those employers who demonstrate their commitment to employee health and well-being will be the places of choice for the best talent.

The University of Oklahoma recently completed a pilot program using low-cost Easy Desktop Yoga for a number of employees who work at their computers all day. Even in these economic times  OU just expanded their program by purchasing a second set of licenses.

Those companies eliminating programs are operating in emergency mode. Chronic emergency is harmful to  individual and organizational health.