employee wellness – EPIQ Risk Management

Spring Wellness Tips for Improving Employee Health

April 3, 2024/in Health and Wellness, Workplace Wellness/by admin

Spring has sprung, bringing a season of renewal! As individuals embark on their spring cleaning activities and we collectively look ahead to sunnier days and warmer temperatures, it’s a great time to promote employee health and wellness. Encourage your teams to prioritize their wellness and reap the benefits of happier, healthier employees and a more positive, productive work environment.

Here are some spring wellness ideas to help you get started:

Fresh Wellness Challenges

As many are looking for ways to renew their health this time of the year, survey employees about their goals and create fresh challenges to support them. Depending on the responses, here are a few wellness challenges and ideas to consider:

Hydration challenges
Step challenges – daily, weekly, monthly
Exercise challenges – hours per week, number of workouts
Mental health – yoga, meditation
Financial health – budgeting workshops

Social Events

Consider planning social events for employees to team build and to interact outside of professional roles. Consider company-sponsored outing, catered lunch, or “game night” one afternoon.

Host a Donation Drive

During spring, many people clean out their homes and donate or sell things they no longer need. Consider hosting a donation drive and donate collected items to a local organization or shelter.

The spring season is a great time to implement new employee wellness initiatives and we are here to support you! Should you have any questions or need assistance with the creation or implementation of new workplace wellness programs, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Five Ways to Support Employee’s Mental Health and Wellness

May 1, 2023/in Health and Wellness, Workplace Wellness/by admin

Each year, one in five adults in the U.S. will experience mental illness, while only one in three who need help will get it. These widespread mental health challenges not only result in people missing work but also in them being less focused and productive. This is why focusing on workplace mental health is important for both your employee’s wellness and your business’ bottom line.

Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that depression and anxiety cost the economy $1 trillion per year in lost productivity. But WHO also found that for every $1 spent on treating common mental health concerns, there is a return of $4 in improved health and productivity. As such, many employers are enhancing emotional and mental health benefits to include support services ranging from managing stress to treating invisible disabilities such as anxiety and depression.

Here are five ways your company can support your employees and their mental health:

1. Understand how mental health impacts your employees.

“It’s important for managers to be trained to recognize the signs of emotional distress so they can react in a supportive rather than a punitive way,” says Jerome Schultz, PhD, a clinical neuropsychologist and a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. “Some employees need people around them to say, ‘Hey, I see you might be feeling stressed. Maybe now is a good time to try some breathing exercises or go take a walk.’”

Proactive steps employers can take include:

Mandating mental health training for company leaders to ensure they are able to support employee wellbeing
Training managers on how to identify and respond to signs of emotional distress or substance abuse
Consider using surveys such as the Work Limitations Questionnaire and the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire to gauge how employees’ health and stress levels impact

2. Expand health care plan options to include mental health coverage.

The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act requires insurance coverage for mental health conditions (including substance use disorders) to be no more restrictive than insurance coverage for other medical conditions. Encourage employees to identify psychologists and psychiatrists who are in-network and consider providing a health savings account (HSA) option to help employees offset out-of-pocket mental health care costs.

3. Establish an employee assistance program (EAP).

Employee assistance programs (EAPs) are a great way to support workplace mental health. While some employees may be reluctant to use this resource due to fear of stigma, shame, and lack of understanding about how these confidential programs work, employers can alleviate this through educating employees on how to utilize their EAP. A great way to do this is by distributing a monthly mental health newsletter.

According to Fernán Cepero, YMCA of Greater Rochester’s senior human resources business partner, “The newsletter reminds employees these benefits are available to you. It’s paid for you. It’s there for you. Use it as much as you want. Employees know ‘I can call to work out a plan. I can get assistance I need now rather than waiting for a crisis. I can get help before I even have to use my insurance.’”

Employers can encourage employees to use an EAP by:

Providing direct access to mental health professionals via phone and/or in-person
Offering this resource to employees and their immediate family members
Simplifying how employees gain access to mental health resources
Emphasizing that EAPs can be accessed confidentially, free of charge

4. Leverage communication to reduce stigma and increase access to mental health resources.

While many employers opt for waiting until open enrollment to share mental health benefits and community resources, it’s best to do so on a regular basis. Encourage business leaders and executives to discuss well-being when talking about talent recruitment and building an inclusive culture. Employers may also consider offering workshops so employees can learn more about mental health and resilience.

5. Promote well-being throughout the year.

Some simple ways to promote well-being include:

Building as much flexibility as possible into all employees’ schedules
Offering access to apps that can help with sleep and stress reduction
Creating a meditation room on-site
Offering mindfulness training and/or yoga classes on-site
Encouraging employees to use their vacation time (by limiting the amount of vacation employees can roll over into the next year)
Providing accommodations and return-to-work processes for employees who need to take a leave of absence because of a mental health issue so they feel supported when they return
Creating opportunities for employees to build connections with each other (through social events, affinity groups, and/or message boards)

Six Employee Wellness Program Ideas to Implement Today

April 4, 2023/in Health and Wellness, Workplace Wellness/by admin

There’s no better time to spring into health. And there’s no better way to encourage employees to do the same than launching new wellness programs.

Here are six employee wellness initiatives to implement today!

1. Provide healthy meals or snack options

As many spend the majority of their daily lives at their places of work, providing healthy meals or snacks gives employees easy access to nutritious foods and makes it easier for them to maintain a healthy diet. While this can be an expensive perk to offer, it may help employees to feel more energized, focused, productive, and happy. It can also encourage employees to be in the office and encourage more conversations in the common areas.

Some healthy food subscription options to look into: Hungry Root, SnackNation, Garten. Employers can also help manage costs by providing snacks on certain days of the month.

2. Encourage personal time off and self-care

To be productive, people not only need a healthy amount of rest and relaxation, but also the flexibility to rest and relax when they need to. While it may not be possible to accommodate all self-care needs during normal working hours, allowing employees to rest when they say they need to benefits your organization in the long run.

Employers encourage their employees to take care of themselves, even when it may not be ideal for the business’ immediate needs, show they genuinely care about the wellbeing of their employees. And employees who feel cared for are more committed to their companies and ultimately more productive. Making this a win-win.

3. Provide mental healthcare support and resources

Though mental health can be difficult to navigate, as not everyone is comfortable talking about it and some may be afraid that talking about mental health may lead to crossing professional boundaries, the truth is that mental health needs to be acknowledged, maintained, and treated for improvement to be made. Life can feel overwhelming at times and providing mental health support and resources for employees can help them navigate these struggles and enable them to show up to work as their best selves.

Studies show that the global economy loses an estimated one trillion dollars per year due to lost productivity as a result of neglecting mental health needs. Many mental health platforms and online services are available to help employers better support, and prioritize, their employees mental health. These include:

4. Offer reimbursements for health and wellness expenses

Reimbursements are one of the most popular health and wellness benefits employers tend to offer. Most commonly, companies will reimburse employees for gym memberships or fitness classes. However, as more health and wellness products and services become available, many companies are looking to expand their reimbursement offerings. Some of these include offering reimbursements for meal subscription plans, fitness equipment and app subscriptions such as Headspace and ClassPass.

5. Encourage team-bonding in and outside of the office

The more your team gets to know one another, not only do relationships among coworkers become stronger, but also communication enhances, brainstorming and idea-sharing happens more frequently, and daily workflow becomes more efficient.

To help build relationships in the workplace, consider implementing weekly team lunches. Most people don’t like to chat while working, so facilitating weekly team lunches gives employees the opportunity to engage in casual conversation and get to know each other better. To help encourage relationships outside of the office, consider implementing quarterly team outings and events. This can encourage employees to build stronger bonds and friendships over non-work related topics and conversation.

6. Offer Wellness Incentives

Research shows that one of the best and most effective ways to get people engaged and stay motivated to participate in your corporate wellness program is to offer incentives. Incentives can fall under a variety of categories:

Cost Incentives	Example: Cash rewards, gift cards, reimbursements
Low or No-Cost Incentives	Example: Paid time off, extended breaks
Progress-based Incentives	Best for increasing and maintaining participation. Employees can earn multiple incentives throughout the program. Increasing the size/value of the incentives as the program continues is an additional way to motivate your team to participate
Participation-based Incentives	This type of Incentive can be given to anyone who participates in the program. Because of its non-competitive nature, this type of incentive is best for increasing camaraderie and cohesiveness among employees
Performance-based Incentives	This type of incentive can be given as employees reach certain goals or milestones in your program. If you have a team of highly-competitive people, this type of incentive is an effective way to ensure high participation rates
Results-based Incentives	This type of incentive is typically given at the end of a program to employees who reach an overall goal

The most common type of incentive is monetary and often includes:

Cash rewards given directly to employees as bonuses.
Reimbursements for classes, memberships, subscriptions, equipment purchased by employees, etc.
Money deposited into an Health Spending Account (HSA) – which we’ll talk more about later in this article.

Other incentives may include:

Material gifts (i.e. apparel, appliances, tech, equipment, etc.)
Gift cards
Company events
Free meals/lunches
Free subscriptions or memberships
Paid Time Off (PTO)
Extended or additional breaks

Six Employee Wellness Challenge Ideas for Spring

March 1, 2023/in Health and Wellness, Workplace Wellness/by admin

Spring is a time of rebirth! Making it the optimal season for re-engaging employees in your workplace wellness programs. And what better way to do so than with some fun, new wellness challenges.

Here are six types of wellness challenge ideas to spark your creativity and help you refresh your programs and get your teams excited to live healthier in body and mind!

1. Hydration Challenges

From aiding with digestion and eliminating waste from the body, to helping our bodies function, contributing to weight loss, and making your skin glow, the benefits of drinking water are abundant! The daily recommendation is to drink eight ounces of water, eight times a day (or 64 ounces/day), though some believe a more recently recommended evaluation based on activity level, metabolism, climate, and weight. While is seems simple, and regular water consumption may be standard for some employees, drinking enough water could be challenging for those who drink soda and coffee all day.

Implementing a water challenge is a great way to promote proper hydration. Hydration challenges are easy to execute, simply invite your teams to replace one or more beverages (soda, juice, coffee, alcohol, etc.) with water for 30 days. You may also consider creating a seven-day water challenge where employees replace all other drinks with water or challenge for employees to set daily water consumption goals. Be sure to design a process for everyone to track and share their progress.

To help employees succeed, encourage them to set up reminders: They can set an alarm to fill up their water bottle, schedule text message reminders from their wellness program platform to take water breaks during the day, or even keep water bottles on their nightstand, desk at home, and in the kitchen.

2. Fitness Challenges

Fitness challenges are a great way to encourage physical fitness and create healthy habits! Your employees will likely be at varying levels of physical fitness, with some being in great shape and others struggling to stay active. Fitness challenges may be tailored to help all employees re-commit to their workouts, yoga practice, or whatever physical fitness activities appeal to them. To aid engagement, consider physical challenges that can be done at home, outside, or at the gym.

Encourage employees to set a weekly exercise goal for themselves, we recommend 140 minutes per week, which is roughly 20 minutes per day. This is an optimal starting point for all fitness levels and it can easily be adapted to just about any fitness level. Have employees track their workouts, time, and progress and base rewards on effort rather than results.

To promote engagement, use your wellness platform or internal communication to create a space for employees to share workout ideas, videos from some of their favorite online trainers, and even their own workout routines.

3. Feel Good Challenges

After several incredibly stressful, challenging years, most everyone can benefit from feel good challenges designed to promote mental health. And being outside in the fresh air and sunshine can help improve mood and create a renewed sense of optimism.

For a simple feel good challenge, have employees track their time spent outdoors with a goal of at least 10-15 minutes a day for a minimum of 10 days per month. Consider offering extra points for spending an hour or more outside during the weekends. Employees may track their time in your wellness platform or in a journal where they track their time spent outdoors and note how that time spent impacts their mood.

4. Relaxation Challenges

As a society of workaholics and worry-aholics, with our phones delivering a fresh dose of work (and existential) stress before bed, in the mornings, and even on weekends, relaxation time may be at an all time low. Fortunately, a couple of relaxation-themed wellness challenges can help employees take a deep breath and unclench.

Relaxation challenges may be implemented in several manners. Consider having employees pick from any number of things they consider to be relaxing and commit to logging 500 minutes (approx. 8 hours) of relaxation per month. Some ideas include:

Mindfulness meditation and yoga
Reading
Listening to music (even more relaxing if done in a comfortable chair with the eyes closed)
Listening to nature, whether it’s outside or a virtual soundscape like a Japanese garden
Taking a long bath or shower
Spending time on a favorite craft or relaxing hobby
Gardening

5. Socialization Challenges

Encourage them to be more social with socialization wellness challenges. Some ideas include game night challenges, where employees participate in scheduled game nights with family, friends, loved ones, or colleagues. Another idea for social wellness is scheduling lunches with a buddy, whether that’s one or more of their children, a spouse, a colleague, or a friend. Set a goal for a number of lunches, game nights, or other social functions and have employees track their engagements.

6. Financial Wellness Challenges

One of the most popular financial wellness challenges encourages employees to wait up to seven days before making online purchases. Online shopping has skyrocketed over the last year with consumers spending more of their shopping dollars on ecommerce sites than in stores, creating a quick pathway to overspending. You may also consider having employees work on creating a budget and setting spending levels for the month.

For questions about these challenge ideas, or for assistance with refreshing your workplace wellness program needs a refresh, please contact Epiq Risk Management.

Posts

Spring Wellness Tips for Improving Employee Health

Five Ways to Support Employee’s Mental Health and Wellness

Six Employee Wellness Program Ideas to Implement Today

Six Employee Wellness Challenge Ideas for Spring

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