wellbeing – Workforce

April 23, 2019June 29, 2023

Employees Learn Gardening Basics Through Workplace Program

Fresh fruits and vegetables may be a luxury for certain people and communities, but some organizations are taking a proactive step by creating companywide gardens on their campuses.

Intuit Inc. and PayPal are two companies that use StartOrganic in their workplaces. Founded by Josh Levine and Troy Smothermon in 2011, StartOrganic is a California-based company that brings organic gardening education to employers, schools and private residences.

For organizations with larger locations like Intuit’s Silicon Valley campus and PayPal’s campus in San Jose, employees can plant and harvest their bounty at work. For smaller organizations or high-rise offices, there are educational programs so employees can start gardening at own home.

The art and the science of growing one’s own food has been lost, Levine said, and companies can carry the social influence needed to promote that.

“If they’re able to provide growing space or if they champion a cause like, ‘It’s important for people to know how to grow their own food,’ then they’ll influence the community around them,” he said.

Even on campuses with a lot of space for corporate gardens, that’s not necessarily the end goal of the program, according to Levine.

“We’re there every week to teach them the ins and outs of practically growing their own food so that they can take that home and start their own home garden,” he said. StartOrganic provides gardening tools on site, from trowels to cutting utensils.

Smothermon or Levine will hold a monthly class for all the growers to prepare them for the next month of their garden. Additionally, one of them goes on site once a week to answer questions and provide guidance to growers.

Also read: Green Thumbs and Living Walls in Urban Areas

Robert Scontrino, developing engineering manager at PayPal, is one employee who has taken his gardening skills back to his home, where he has a 2-year-old daughter and two garden plots. “That’s something that I might not have done if I wasn’t part of this program,” he said.

It also allows Scontrino to carry on a tradition that he grew up with as a boy. His grandfather did a lot of gardening. While Scontrino didn’t do very much in his grandfather’s garden, he spent a lot of time in the garden itself, observing what was going on and eating the food.

“[The PayPal garden] does bring back some of those memories,” he said. “There’s a lot of rosemary in the garden, and smelling that rosemary actually brings back some very fond memories of me spending time with my grandfather in his garden.”

Scontrino also enjoys the campus garden because it allows him to meet people with similar interests. The overall experience has been “quite the learning experience,” he said, and he’s picked up knowledge like what plants grow in what seasons, how to grow them and when to pick them.

Also read: Workplace Gardens Taking Root

He also appreciates gardening as a way to help relieve the stress of the work day. He tries to find the time to walk to the garden a couple times a day to unwind and see what’s going on.

Gay Jacobs, executive assistant to VP, general counsel, at PayPal, also participates in the program. As someone who appreciates organic food and has a plant-based diet, this is one way for her to access healthy, fresh organic food. “It’s been eye-opening just to see the process and to see how long it takes to grow [vegetables] and how much fresher they are.”

She typically spends time in the garden twice a week, on Tuesdays when Levine is there to answer questions, and on Fridays before the weekend starts. During growing season, she can check on her plants before the weekend, then in harvest season she’ll pick food that she can use the following Sunday to meal-prep for work. She starts out each day with a protein-packed green smoothie and eats salads every day.

Jacobs also appreciates the social and community aspect of the garden. “You see everyone else out their tending to their gardens, and we talk about what’s going on,” she said. If she and other gardeners are growing different things they sometimes will share with each other.

Also read: Consider Fresh Air and Relaxed Hikes to Combat Work Stress

Loved ones in her life also give her ideas on what to do with her harvest. “One time, I had a foot-long zucchini. I didn’t know what to do with it!” she said. A friend suggested she make zucchini bread, and after experimenting with the recipe, it’s now one of her favorite things to make. She’s looking forward to zucchini season this year so that she can further perfect her recipe.

Gardening has allowed her to add new elements to her go-to dishes and soups. For example, while she was growing broccoli, she noticed how big the leaves were and wondered if they were edible. After some research, she confirmed that they are edible and chops them up for soups.

PayPal has 56 plots, up from 15 plots when the program began in 2013, and generally two employees share a plot, said Julie Vennewitz-Pierce, director of PayPal Gives. All employees are welcome to sign up and there’s usually a wait list that gives employees a spot on a first-come, first-served basis.

“The goal was, and still is, to provide an opportunity for employees to grow fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers in the spirit of environmental sustainability and employee wellness,” Vennewitz-Pierce said.

Moving forward, this year PayPal is working with StartOrganics to launch a composting program. Employees can learn how to compost scraps for their plots and how use that compost in their gardens.

PayPal also has a garden with 40 plots at its offices in Omaha, Nebraska, Vennewitz-Pierce said. This one isn’t managed by a vendor but by the company’s facilities team.

Currently, StartOrganic operates in California, Smothermon said. California works best from a logistical point of view. Growing seasons are different in various geographic areas of the country, and there are certain plant diseases that happen in some parts of the country but not others.

But its founders are open to working other places, he added. For example, a company in New York requested its services for an educational program.

“No matter where you’re growing, there are some basics that are universal,” Smothermon said. “Even in New York, once the weather warms up a bit, you want to have the same sort of infrastructure.”

March 28, 2019June 29, 2023

Sector Report: Wellness Valuable as a Recruiting Tool

Wellness benefits have officially changed teams. These health-inspired programs and resources are no longer viewed as health care initiatives, but rather as a “new talent value proposition,” said Mike Maniccia, specialist leader for Deloitte in Los Angeles.

“The origins of wellness programs were about saving money by creating a healthier workforce,” he says. But the financial returns on wellness investments have been notoriously difficult to measure, which diminished their value and caused them to lose the backing by cost-conscious execs.

However, in a low unemployment economy where millennials dominate the talent pool, wellness has gained new life as a powerful recruiting tool. Offering on-site yoga classes, healthy food options in the cafeteria, and a suite of physical and emotional wellness apps can help win over hard-to-land new hires. “Appealing to millennials is dominating the wellness conversation,” he said.

Companies like Google, Apple and Patagonia win constant accolades for their innovative wellness efforts, which often include over-the-top offerings like on-site massage therapy, weekly cooking classes, and free outdoor-inspired daycare centers. Maniccia worries a bit that the hype generated by a handful of mission-driven and well-funded wellness programs will make it impossible for others to keep up. “It’s difficult to replicate that kind of culture in manufacturing, retail or a small business,” he said.

However, in reality, companies don’t have to spend a lot of money on wellness to impress talent, as long as they are creative and offer programs that employees actually want. Deloitte’s 2018 “Human Capital Trends” report found that the top two wellness benefits desired by employees are flexible schedules and the option to telecommute, both of which require no real financial investment and can actually cut overhead costs.

Also read the 2018 Sector Report: Is Wellness Just an Employee Perk?

Also read the 2017 Sector Report: Workplace Wellness Programs Continue Healthy Ascent

Benefits Come From Within

Beyond flex time, employees are seeking wellness tools that fit their unique needs and interest. That’s has caused an evolution in the types of programs offered and how employees are encouraged to take part, said Linda Natansohn, head of corporate development, meQuilibrium, a resiliency training company in Boston. Most companies have evolved past things like incentives for biometric screenings, in part because of negative publicity that saw incentives as a form of coercion, but also because they didn’t generate the desired results.

“No amount of extrinsic rewards will drive people to change their behavior,” she said. “Employers have to figure out what is meaningful to their people.”

To connect with these personal drivers, companies have begun curating an assortment of offerings to address employees’ physical, social, emotional and fiscal needs. Many of them come in the form of apps and wearables that encourage healthy behavior and offer intrinsic motivators, like leader boards and positive messages when users hit daily goals.

Though not everyone is motivated by an app, said Steven Noeldner, head of total health management for Mercer. Some employees like self-directed programs, but others will prefer real-time workshops, consulting, or small group classes. “The idea is to have a broad array of services designed for different segments of the population.”

That includes social and emotional wellness programs, which are gaining popularity as companies realize the value of having a happy and well-adjusted workforce, noted Natansohn. These offerings can range from on-site therapists, to meditation apps to “kindness clubs,” where employees work together to create a better and more inclusive culture, she says. “It’s a more holistic approach to well-being.”

Regardless of the scope of offerings, managers and executives have to show their support for using these programs if employees are going to get on board, according to Noeldner. “Organizations with strong leadership support have higher participation and better health outcomes,” he said.

He recently completed work on a joint study between Health Enhancement Research Organization and Mercer that found organizations whose leaders actively participate in health and well-being initiatives reported higher median rates of both employee satisfaction with health and well-being programs (83 percent) and employee perception of organizational support (85 percent) compared to organizations whose leaders did not actively participate (66 percent and 67 percent, respectively).

“The C-suite and management create the climate around wellness,” he said. No matter how carefully companies select their wellness offerings and vendors, leadership support for the program will be critical to their success.

February 11, 2019June 29, 2023

Health Enhancement Research Organization Taps Its HEROs

Now is as good a time as any to rethink our workplace health and well-being initiatives. It’s a chance to freshen up stale offerings and engage with employees who might be looking to make health changes of their own.

The winners of the 2018 HERO — Health Enhancement Research Organization — Health and Well-Being Awards have ideas that should help. The HERO Health and Well-Being Awards recognize individuals for leadership, research contributions and other noteworthy accomplishments in the field of workplace health and well-being. In interviews conducted at the 2018 HERO Forum, winners talked about four key elements of successful well-being initiatives.

Employee perspective matters. The innovative well-being initiatives that 2018 Heart of HERO winner Sheri Snow oversees at American Cast Iron Pipe earned that company the C. Everett Koop National Health Award in 2014. One key to those offerings, she said, is the opportunity for employees to shape what is available to them. Whether they gather information through surveys, one-on-one interviews or other methods of exploring employee perspectives, Snow believes it is important for employers to understand what employees want in a well-being initiative.

“Employers can really enhance their programs by listening to employees and involving them in planning, seeing what they want,” Snow said. “Conduct surveys and listen to what employees say they want, not just what you think they need.”

Health and Well-Being Awards — Sheri Snow. Photo credit: HERO.

Bill Whitmer Award winner Shelly Wolff said the gap between employer and employee perspectives on well-being can be instructive. As health and workforce effectiveness leader at Willis Towers Watson, Wolff works with her clients to reduce the existing gap and adjust their well-being offerings accordingly. “Understanding that gap has helped companies dial into the importance of hearing directly from employees,” Wolff said. “That evolution of human-centered design and putting the employee at the center of the effort is having a big influence on what well-being means to employers.”

Support starts at the top. Leadership support plays an important role in the success of well-being initiatives. Research has shown that organizations realize better results on both health improvement and medical costs when leaders recognize healthy behaviors, and when they model work-life balance with their own actions. Healthy HERO Award winner Amanda Potter offers real-world support for that theory. The award, now in its second year, recognizes employees who have used their employer’s well-being offerings to transform their own lives and encourage co-workers to make positive changes. Potter, a social media manager for Midco Communications, changed her nutrition and fitness habits after the birth of her son, leading to improvements in her mental well-being and physical health. She also started a workday walking group that earned early buy-in from the people above her on the pay scale.

“When I started that walking group, I created an email list that allowed people to opt in if they wanted to participate. I got my boss and my boss’ boss on board immediately,” said Potter. “That made a big difference — to have them be not only supportive, but embracing it.”

Balance is key. One of Jerry Noyce Executive Champion Award winner Beth Bierbower’s biggest accomplishments is the implementation of a digital detox policy that bans work emails from 6:00 p.m. Friday through 6:00 a.m. Monday. That break gives employees a chance to get away from work, connect with their families and get re-energized for their return to the office. That policy might not work for everyone — some businesses or groups may need to be connected 24/7 — but Bierbower is an advocate for thinking broadly about well-being and not just focusing on physical fitness and activities.

“The broader you get, the more you can get your employees engaged,” said Bierbower, president, employer group segment at Humana. “If an employee isn’t interested in physical fitness, maybe they’re interested in volunteering, or in financial well-being. When you create a better balance of well-being offerings, you’re creating more entry points where people can get involved.”

The value of data. Whether it’s the latest fad diet or the hottest tech gadget, people like new things. The same is often true in the area of well-being. It’s easy to chase trends, but Mark Dundon Research Award winners Kerry Evers and Sarah Johnson prefer a more measured approach, and they believe in taking the long view when it comes to well-being and behavior change.

“It’s important to rely on the evidence base that’s been developed,” said Johnson. “It’s so easy to fall into the exciting trends that are happening and ignore the evidence base, so it’s important for people to remind themselves how important it is for efforts to be rooted in science.”

Evers recommended looking beyond major benchmarks while measuring well-being progress. Doing so moves us away from an all-or-nothing approach where measurable results are key and adds an understanding of how changes take place over time.
“If you look at the entire continuum, you can see groups and programs making progress and making incremental gains along the way,” said Evers. “Understanding those gains is key to keeping morale up and for implementing programs, to see how successful they are.”

Also read: Workplace wellness Dominates at Employer Forum

Understanding of health and well-being initiatives will continue to evolve because people will continue to change. Millennials have different priorities than baby boomers, so their perspective on well-being will naturally differ from that of their older colleagues. As that evolution continues, it’s important to check in from time to time with the people who are close to the heart of the industry. There’s no better time than now.

December 10, 2018June 29, 2023

Help Workers Save for Rainy Days, Not Just Golden Years

There is a savings crisis in America. Eight out of 10 workers are living paycheck to paycheck, and though many employers have started to prioritize financial wellness in recent years, they are doing little to prepare employees for financial emergencies that could end up affecting their performance in the workplace.

While it’s true that a lot of companies offer 401(k)s to help employees save for retirement, they aren’t a feasible option for many U.S. workers, regardless of employer contributions. The Federal Reserve Board’s 2018 “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households” shows that 40 percent of people can’t even afford a $400 emergency, much less afford to set money aside for retirement.

401(k)s have their place in financial wellness, but that place is not savings for events prior to retirement. There are substantial fees associated with withdrawing funds before retirement.

These fees impact a lot of people: 44 percent of Americans report having to tap into their retirement before they hit age 59 and a half for things like grad school, debt reduction and unexpected hospital visits.

There is a 10 percent penalty for early withdrawals. On top of that, employees must also pay income tax on the money they withdraw, making these accounts even less useful for unexpected expenses prior to retirement.

Financial Worry Hurts the Bottom Line

But early withdrawal fees are just one symptom of the larger problem of ongoing financial stress. Last year, nearly 60 percent of people surveyed said they were anxious about their future financial state. And even more concerning, more than 30 percent reported being worried about how they’ll make ends meet in the present.

Also read: What Ails Financial Wellness Plans

This financial stress leads to big problems in the workplace. For example in 2017, financial worry caused employees to miss an average of 3.4 work days, and nearly a third of financially stressed employees say their money concerns carry over into their job, affecting their productivity and focus.

SafetyNet asked thousands of workers what they would like from their companies, and most noted they wanted help saving money, especially for unexpected emergencies. But few employers are offering help when it comes to rainy day savings.

Also read: Assessing the Value of Financial Wellness for Your Employees

Employers Can Help by Offering Short-term Savings Programs

The good news is that improving employees’ financial security is solvable.

Some companies, like Aetna, have started using incentive-based financial programs to educate employees on basic money management. Still, only 17 percent of large companies offer these types of programs and employees want financial tools in addition to education.

Prudential Financial is throwing their hat in the ring by helping employees set up an after-tax savings option within their 401(k)s. This model enables employees to gather after-tax contributions from their paycheck and have a lower withdrawal fee than the pre-tax contributions do, making these funds easier to use as emergency savings if needed.

One option becoming popular for employers is a short-term savings program, which holds funds that people can access at any time.

Different from traditional savings accounts, these programs (sometimes called “rainy day funds”) are typically sponsored by employers. They work by stowing funds in dedicated savings accounts. A few varieties already exist.

CookieJar, for example, is an employer-sponsored savings account that rounds up spare change from employees’ debit card purchases and gives companies the option to match those contributions. This type of program is low-cost — far below those of a 401(k) for the employer, and free to the employee.

And with Congress attempting to make it easier for employers to set up these types of programs, you can expect to see more in the future.

Given the amount of time and energy currently lost to financial stress, these programs could have a major impact on the well-being — and the bottom line — of your company.