Employers want workers to be accountable for their own health: Survey
Originally posted May 19, 2014 by Stephanie Goldberg on www.businessinsurance.com.
DALLAS — Employers are implementing healthy lifestyle programs and activities for workers and developing workplace cultures in which employees are responsible for their own health, Julie Stone, leader of business process benefits, health and group benefits at Towers Watson & Co., said of the new health care landscape.
“The commitment to workforce health is clear, and that translates in many different ways in organizations — from building a culture … in your worksite, onsite health care, to just how you design your plans and what you incent people to do or not do,” Ms. Stone said Monday during a session on navigating health care reform at WorldatWork's 2014 Total Rewards Conference in Dallas.
Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health asked employers what their top priorities were via the 2014 “Employer Survey on Purchasing Value in Health Care,” released in March. Ms. Stone, who is based in Parsippany, New Jersey, said developing a workplace culture where employees feel personally accountable for their health was at the top of employers' list.
Healthy workers tend to be more productive, present and fully functioning, which has a direct link to the employer's bottom line, Ms. Stone said.
“The healthier your workforce, the lower your cost,” she said. “It's another way of reducing your spend before the excise tax without having to take away from a benefit design perspective.”
She said it's important for employers to build a strategy around the health care reform law's 40% excise tax on high-cost health coverage that takes effect in 2018.
“About 60% of the organizations that we've surveyed and work with are likely to hit the excise tax if there aren't changes made to the costs of benefits,” Ms. Stone said, adding that 71% of employers surveyed expect to change their health plans in preparation for the excise tax.
Understanding FMLA Basics
Originally posted May 21, 2014 on https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com.
Is your organization subject to the requirements of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)? Do all of your employees qualify? What would it take for both your organization and your employees to qualify? And what does all of this mean in terms of employer obligations?
Let’s start with the basics: What employers are subject to the FMLA regulations?
Here are the basics of what employers are covered:
- For private companies, the employer must have at least 50 employees to be subject to the FMLA, and these employees must have worked at least 20 or more workweeks in the current or prior calendar year.
- Additionally, there must be at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius for that location to be covered.
- Public (government) agencies and schools are subject to the FMLA regardless of the number of employees.
What this means in practice is that any private employer with fewer than 50 employees does not have to provide FMLA leave. And even employers with more than 50 employees do not have to provide FMLA leave to employees who work in locations where there are fewer than 50 employees within a 75-mile radius, even if all other employees are covered. Bear in mind, an employer with fewer employees than this threshold could still choose to allow unpaid leaves that are in alignment with the FMLA standards, but they would not be required to do so by law.
Now let’s look at employees: Which employees qualify to take FMLA leave?
What must an employee do to qualify under the FMLA?
- First, the employee must have been employed by the employer (the same employer who is subject to the FMLA leave based on the criteria above) for at least 1 year. This requirement does not have to be the preceding year calendar year and need not be consecutive. For example, if an employee worked for the employer in the past, that time could count toward this requirement as long as it was fewer than 7 years ago (or if the absence of more than 7 years was due to military obligations).
- The employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours for the employer in the preceding 12 months. Vacation or PTO time does not count toward this requirement.
- The employee must work at a location that has 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius, as we noted above.
- Finally, the employee must have a qualifying condition. This includes:
- The employee’s own serious health condition.
- The need to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition. “Immediate family member” refers to a spouse, child, or parent.
- Placement or birth of a child. (The right to leave in this instance extends for up to one year after the birth or placement of the child.)
- Any qualifying exigency related to an immediate family member being in the military on “covered active duty.”
And if both the employer and the employee qualify, what does that mean the employee is entitled to?
If the employer is subject to the FMLA leave and the employee qualifies for it, then the employee has the right to up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period, which can be taken in one or more blocks of time. For some conditions, when medically necessary, the leave could also be taken intermittently or on a reduced schedule. The FMLA also entitles the employee to:
- Job reinstatement upon return from leave, in the same or equivalent role.
- Continuation of group health benefits during the leave period. The employee is still obligated to pay his or her insurance premium contributions during that time.
- Up to 26 total weeks of leave (instead of 12) in the case of caring for a covered service- member with a serious injury or illness.
Beyond employee entitlements, covered employers also have an obligation to:
- Post an FMLA notice explaining employee rights under the FMLA program.
- Give all new employees information about the FMLA, either in the employee handbook or separately upon hire.
- Tell an employee when he or she may have an FMLA-qualifying leave, as soon as the employer reasonably should know that an absence or leave request may qualify.
- Give employees an official eligibility notice for FMLA leaves.
- Explain the employee’s rights and responsibilities under the FMLA.
- For all FMLA leaves, note the FMLA designation and how much of the total leave allotment will be deducted from the employee’s leave bank.
These basic components of the FMLA can help employers to understand their obligations under the FMLA. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg; proper FMLA administration will require a more in-depth understanding of how to ensure employees are qualified, how to curb FMLA abuse, and how to ensure employees are treated fairly and consistently under the program.
Work-life balance study offers model for success
Originally posted May 16, 2014 by Dan Cook on www.benefitspro.com.
Work-life balance is out of balance in the United States, and it extracts a toll both on the job and at home. An oft-referenced 2010 survey starkly revealed how out of whack work-life balance is. Since, there’s been no evidence that it’s improved, despite the amount of discussion the subject generates.
But a recent controlled study that examined the effect of giving employees more say in their work schedule indicates that such an approach to addressing the issue could provide quantitative and qualitative benefits to employers.
The study involved 700 employees of a Fortune 500 IT corporation. Designed and conducted by two University of Minnesota researchers, the study offered half the participants considerable control over their work schedules. The other half put shoulder to the wheel in the “normal” fashion, the researchers said — meaning they let the boss set their schedule and simply followed through.
The upshot, according to the study: “Workplaces can change to increase flexibility, provide more support from supervisors, and reduce work-family conflict.”
The study revealed “significant improvements” in how the schedule-controllers reported feeling about life on the job and at home during the six-month study period.
“Not only did they have a decrease in work-family conflict, but they also experienced an improvement in perceived time adequacy (a feeling that they had enough time to be with their families) and in their sense of schedule control,” the study said.
Those who benefited the most from the additional schedule control were working parents and employees who said their bosses didn’t support work-life balance prior to the study. On average, the schedule controllers worked about an hour less a week than their counterparts, and they continued to be as productive as they had been prior to the study.
“There was no evidence that this intervention increased work hours or perceived job demands,” the researchers said.
In a news release, the researchers, Dr. Phyllis Moen and Dr. Erin Kelly, claimed that their work offered corporations a path toward enhancing employees’ lives without risking lost productivity. Too, they said, it would be important to establish a formal work-life balance program as opposed to the types of informal, case-by-case work-life balance experiments many companies have dabbled in.
“Work-family conflict can wreak havoc with employees’ family lives and also affect their health,” said Rosalind King, of the Population Dynamics Branch at the National Institutes of Health. “The researchers have shown that by restructuring work practice to focus on results achieved and providing supervisors with an instructional program to improve their sensitivity to employees’ after-work demands, they can reduce that stress and improve employees’ family time.”
15 ways to make employees happy
Originally posted May 2, 2014 by Dan Cook on www.benefitspro.com.
You can offer employees a lavish buffet lunch onsite every day, bring in a masseuse on Fridays and hold the company picnic at Disney World. But at the end of the day, if you have the wrong people in the wrong jobs, you will still not have a happy workforce.
That is the message from social-recognition software provider Globoforce in a white paper titled “The Science of Happiness.” Most of the material cited in the paper comes from sources other than Globoforce. However, the company teases out tips for creating a culture of happiness based on its research of others’ research. And therein one can find tasty tidbits of advice that may begin to transform your workplace into a happy one.
“HR leaders encounter a lot of advice about how to manage culture — to increase engagement, decrease turnover, and drive recruitment. But when it comes to creating a culture employees love and don’t want to leave, employee happiness is the metric that really matters,” Globoforce says in a preamble to its data and advice. “Happy employees are what make a culture great.”
The paper says happy employees:
• stay twice as long in their jobs as their least happy colleagues;
• believe they are achieving their potential twice as much;
• spend 65 percent more time feeling energized;
• are 58 percent more likely to go out of the way to help their colleagues;
• identify 98 percent more strongly with the values of their organization;
• are 186 percent more likely to recommend their organization to a friend.
“Unlike culture itself, we have hard numbers on the science of employee happiness and how to directly increase it. It all leads to one conclusion: concentrating your efforts on making employees happy is the most direct and powerful way to impact your organizational culture,” Globoforce says.
Now, to the tips for putting a smile on your workers’ face.
5 ways to build alignment
1. Pay closer attention to job-person fit.
2. Fire people who don’t fit your culture.
3. Help employees find greater meaning in your values.
4. Show workers how your company fits into a bigger picture.
5. Cultivate more trust and flexibility into your policies.
5 ways to build positivity
1. Broadcast personal and team successes.
2. Offer fast, positive feedback.
3. Open up multidirectional communication lines.
4. Offer resources and emotional support.
5. Encourage employees to express gratitude.
5 ways to build progress
1. Set clear, measurable and achievable organizational goals.
2. Show employees how they fit into the bigger picture.
3. Offer training for mastery of new and existing skills.
4. Respect individualism.
5. Reward excellence and effort.
Seeking mindfulness at work: Helping employees find focus
Originally posted May 12, 2014 on https://hr.blr.com.
New research by Steelcase shows that 41 percent of workers report not being able to concentrate easily, while the average person loses 86 minutes per day due to distractions.
The recent 14-country Steelcase/Ipsos study conducted as part of its wellbeing research revealed the growing lack of mindfulness in the workplace. The workplace research addressed how the physical environment can support or hinder mindfulness, along with five other dimensions of wellbeing. The researchers found that the physical environment offers behavioral cues that can promote, or hinder, employee's physical, cognitive and emotional states and long-term health.
Only 59 percent of employees reported their environment enabled them to feel relaxed and calm, while only 58 percent reported being able to work in teams without being interrupted or disturbed. Nearly half of all workers surveyed reported not having adequate spaces that support mindfulness and focus. Ongoing Steelcase research also found that workers in North America lose 86 minutes per day due to a variety of distractions in the workplace.
"Mindfulness means balancing the intense pace of life with being fully present in the moment," said Donna Flynn, director of Workspaces Futures at Steelcase. "With the proliferation of technology and growth of distributed work across time and space, workers are facing unprecedented distractions combined with pressures to be always on, leaving them stressed, tired, and overwhelmed. Healthy and mindful employees are a competitive advantage in today's business world, but to achieve it workers need supportive environments that give them the emotional capacity to interpret and experience events in a way that leads to productive, positive actions."
The Steelcase researchers identified and developed design concepts that companies can incorporate into their workplace to help encourage mindfulness by enhancing employees' ability to concentrate and make thoughtful choices amid distractions and disturbances.
Steelcase key ideas when designing for mindfulness include:
- Offer spaces where people can seek solitude and respite, or connect with others without distractions or interference.
- Design areas that allow workers to control the amount of sensory stimulation they are exposed to and enable them to amp it up or down.
- Create spaces that help people stay focused as they interact with others one-on-one and eye-to-eye
- Offer places that are calming, through the materials, textures, colors, lighting and views.
"Given the mental fatigue that comes with high cognitive load, workers need physical spaces that help them manage the cognitive load and be fully present in the moment," says Beatriz Arantes, senior researcher and environmental psychologist with Steelcase Workspace Futures.
3 goals for work-life balance
Originally posted April 29, 2014 by Brian Tracy on https://www.lifehealthpro.com
Just as a wheel must be perfectly balanced to rotate smoothly, your life must be in balance for you to feel happy and effective. To achieve a good work-life balance, you must tend to these three types of goals:
1. Goal setting for your business and career (What do you really want?) The first category of goal includes business, career and financial goals. These are the tangible, measurable things that you want to achieve as the result of your efforts at work. These are the ‘‘whats’’ that you want to accomplish in life.
When you go about setting goals for your business and career, you must ensure that they’re tangible. You must be absolutely clear about how much you want to earn, and in what time period you want to earn it. You must be clear about how much you want to save, invest and accumulate, and when you want to acquire these assets. Remember, you can’t hit a target that you can’t see.
2. Your purpose in achieving your goals. (Why do you want to achieve your goals?) The second goal category consists of personal, family and health goals. In reality, these are the most important goals of all in determining your happiness and well-being. These are called the ‘‘why’’ goals because they are the reasons you want to achieve your business, career and financial goals. They are your true aim and purpose in life.
Many people become so involved with their careers and financial goals that they lose sight of the reasons why they wanted financial success in the first place. They get their priorities mixed up. As a result, their lives get out of balance. They start to feel stressed and become angry or frustrated. No matter how hard they work to achieve their business and financial goals, they don’t seem to enjoy any more peace, happiness or satisfaction.
What they need is to bring their goals back into the right order and realize that work and financial goals are a means to an end—which is enjoying family and relationships. They are not the ends in themselves.
3. Personal development goals. (How do you achieve your goals?) The third type of goal centers on professional growth and personal development. These are the ‘‘how’’ goals. Goal setting, learning and practicing new skills and behaviors are how you achieve the ‘‘what’’ in order to enjoy the ‘‘why.’’
By working to improve yourself, you can become the kind of person who is capable of achieving your business, career and financial goals. Your personal, family and health goals will come faster and more easily.
By working on these three types of goals simultaneously, you can maintain a healthy work-life balance while continuing to move onward and upward.
American Workers More Physically than Financially Fit
Originally posted April 22, 2014 by Lisa Barron on https://www.benefitspro.com
American employees see themselves as more physically fit (57 percent) than financially fit (28 percent), according to new research from the Principal Financial Well-Being Index: American workers.
The vast majority (84 percent), however, also believe that maintaining physical fitness is an investment in their financial future.
Still, nearly half of workers (46 percent) are stressed about their current financial situation. Fifty-one percent of Gen Y workers are stressed about finances compared to 35 percent of baby boomers. And those working with a financial advisor were less likely (33 percent) to be stressed about their financial future.
"American workers recognize the long-term financial benefits of staying healthy, but financial stress is often a constant pressure that can have a significant impact on their physical health," said Luke Vandermillen, vice president at the Principal Financial Group.
"With spring in full swing, now is a good time for Americans to apply their good fitness habits to their financial lives as well. Mark some time on the calendar for financial spring cleaning."
More than half (52 percent) say they have monitored their spending levels in the past year. Thirty-nine percent created a budget to keep finances in check, up from 28 percent two years ago.
Fifty-seven percent have an emergency fund in place, with those working with a financial profession about 1.5 times more likely to have one.
"It's encouraging to see American workers planning for unforeseen hurdles by giving themselves a financial checkup and setting aside money in an emergency fund," said Vandermillen.
"Despite a few missteps, like using the fund on monthly bills, these positive behaviors show individuals are making strides and taking personal responsibility to improve their short and long-term financial well-being."
The Principal Financial Well-Being Index: American Workers was conducted online among 1,123 employees at small and mid-sized businesses from Feb. 4-12.
76 Percent of Workforce is Tired Most Weekdays
Originally posted April 15, 2014 on www.ifebp.org.
The Virgin Pulse Institute, an evidence-based organization that puts research to work to help employees and companies thrive, today announced the results of a study designed to better understand employees' sleep disturbances and offer actionable insight to both employers and their workforce. The research outlines why employers supporting sleep programs increase employee productivity, and how these programs help employees feel more appreciated and supported.
Leveraging an online sleep program from vielife, the Virgin Pulse Institute conducted a sleep study in November 2013 with approximately 1,140 employees, all Virgin Pulse members, from three U.S.-based companies. Researchers found that:76 percent of employees felt tired most days of the week40 percent of employees doze off during the day once per month30 percent of employees were unhappy or very unhappy with the quality or quantity of their sleep15 percent doze off during the day at least once per week to once per day.
Dr. Jennifer Turgiss, a co-author of the study and director of the Virgin Pulse Institute, said, "Showing up to work sleep deprived can be the equivalent of showing up to work intoxicated. Employees who don't sleep well have poorer concentration, poorer decision-making abilities, are significantly less able to cope with stressful situations, and are more likely to make unhealthy choices. The effects of poor sleep impair people's focus and motivation, preventing them from reaching their full potential. In attempts to encourage employees to live healthier, often employers - with the help of their health insurers or wellness vendors -focus on simply improving diet and exercise, but this approach ignores one critically important habit: sleep. With its direct link to dangerous health conditions and steep productivity losses, a well-rested workforce is critical to a company's success."
The Effect of Sleep Problems
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called lack of sleep "an epidemic," linking it to motor vehicle crashes, industrial disasters and other occupational errors. Many other studies have found employees who sleep fewer than six hours per day are nearly 30 percent more likely to be overweight and have a whole host of health problems like hypertension, diabetes, depression and cancer. These people also take a tremendous cognitive hit on a daily basis - finding it difficult to concentrate at work or complete tasks, resulting in significantly lower productivity. Sleep disturbances cause fatigue-related productivity losses estimated at $1,967 per employee annually, according to a study published in the journal Sleep.
What Causes Sleep Problems?
The Virgin Pulse Institute study found four key themes keeping employees awake at night: worry/stress, mental activity, physical discomfort and environmental disruptors. Many factors within these categories kept participants awake, including:Temperature too high or too low (85.2%)Their partner (71.9%)Unwanted noise (68.6%)Light - too bright (52.8%)Mattress (40%)Young children (35.9%)Medical condition that disturbs sleep (10.2%)
Sleep deprivation was found to have impacts across four key areas: physical well-being; cognitive abilities and productivity; mood; and stress management. Lack of sleep leaves employees less focused on the job and unable to perform at their peak, and leaves them experiencing a decreased feeling of overall well-being, according to the Institute study.
Participants noted that lack of sleep impacted their energy and motivation to participate in physical activities and eat healthy foods. They experienced difficulty concentrating at work or remembering tasks, and felt more irritable at work and home. Sleeplessness also made it harder to manage stress, further impacting their difficulties sleeping. “I come in here in the morning and it's kind of hard to get motivated. I'll be yawning and carrying on and kind of drag for an hour or so before I'm really probably engaged and back doing real performance type of work I would say. So it will be easy for me to just kind of lag around, drink some coffee, walk around, talk to people, or sit at my desk and read Internet news rather than actually work," said one participant."[I would] blow up at the wrong thing or you blow up at the wrong kid or something. And you just go, oh, man. I should have been able to handle that one," said another participant. “And the other thing that I noticed when I go through the period where I have more lack of sleep, I feel more scatterbrained, like I have all of these things to do. And normally, I'm very organized and prioritize and will at least write a list, and everything goes out the window and I start forgetting to do things or bring this in the morning or things like that. And that really bothers me. I hate it when I drop a ball because I forgot something," said another participant. “I think there is a slow-down, in terms of getting tasks done, just because, again, your attention span isn't fully there. You might not be as with it," said another participant. “I probably have got a shorter fuse, a little grumpier," said a participant.
"Our study made one thing clear: lack of sleep is crippling America's workforce. Employers can't turn a blind eye. Whether they offer an online sleep program, encourage employees to use vacation days, or provide other tools, employers must address sleep issues in order to create a thriving workforce and business," said Turgiss. "Not only will employees be more rested, but they'll feel more supported by their employers, helping them perform better and become better able to engage in work and in life."
3 ingredients for a successful employee weight loss program
Originally posted April 10, 2014 by Kelly Carpenter, PhD on www.ebn.benefitnews.com
Everyone who has pursued a traditional employee weight loss program knows that results can be unpredictable. Usually, enough employees succeed in losing weight to give the program value. The problem is they often gain it back. While programs are going in the right direction, clearly there is room for improvement.
Today’s advanced weight-loss programs deliver that improvement, providing more uniform and sustained results by leveraging behavioral change science. The most successful of these programs include the following three key behavior-change ingredients as a foundation for maximum weight-loss impact.
#1: Focus on long-term motivators rather than short-term
The near-term events that often spur people to think about losing weight – a wedding, a cruise, a high school reunion or a financial incentive – all quickly come and go. As the event passes, so does the motivation, and a return of old behaviors almost always means a return to previous weight.
In contrast, long-term motivators endure, enabling the individual to sustain weight loss without needing an incentive, because they discover the personal value a healthier lifestyle brings to life. For instance, when an employee is motivated to lose weight to enjoy a more active life with a spouse, children or grandchildren, that employee is on a more sustainable path to successful weight loss.
#2: Address underlying cognitive, emotional and biological barriers to sustained weight loss
The underlying reasons why some employees just can’t seem to lose weight vary from individual to individual. One employee may have a habit of sneaking a donut in the break room and then thinking “I’ve blown it for today and may as well have one more.” Another employee may have periods of work-related stress that trigger the urge for comfort food. There are dozens of additional behavioral patterns as well as personal weight loss history and biological factors that make losing weight extremely difficult, if not impossible, if not addressed.
Programs that include individualized coaching can provide the specific interventions needed to support behavior change. Health coaches can help an employee overcome the discouragement involved in sneaking a donut by guiding the employee to take a positive action, such as reducing the corresponding calories from the rest of the day’s consumption. Or they can encourage the stressed employee to counter anxiety with a healthy response, such as taking a walk or calling a friend. So it goes for additional behaviors that run counter to weight loss. The key is personalized assistance to help every individual succeed.
#3: Position a more intensive weight loss program as an option within a larger wellness program
Wellness programs − though important to guide employees to better lifestyle habits and establish healthy workplace cultures − do not address the complexities of obesity. That’s why it is important for wellness programs to include an evidence-based weight loss program as an option for people with serious weight issues. Once employees do lose weight, the wellness program can equip them to sustain weight loss by focusing on overall wellbeing as an alternative to a lifetime of on-and-off dieting. Giving employees the best practices and skills needed to achieve and maintain lifelong health can work wonders toward helping formerly obese employees become more fit for life.
As the U.S. obesity epidemic has grown, studies have consistently documented the positive financial outcomes realized when employers respond with solid weight loss programs. By reducing the risks of both diabetes and heart disease, obesity reduction delivers health care savings that contribute significantly to the bottom line. Add employee health and well-being benefits that promote sustained weight loss, and it’s a win-win for everyone involved. That’s why it is imperative to offer a weight loss program, and to make sure it includes the three key ingredients that can optimize the results.
5 Ways to Drive Healthy Behavior Change Virtually
Originally posted on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
Employees have access to thousands of apps covering health and wellness on their mobile device. Employers and wellness vendors can offer workers hi-tech ways to track their physical activity, promote healthy eating and inspire wellness at work. Here are five mobile apps and outreach ideas to get employees moving and engaged in your wellness program.
For office employees sitting at their desk all day, sedentary work can cramp muscles and staring at a computer screen too long can cause eye strain. Employers can remind employees to take stretch breaks by building reminders into the network, such as having a reminder pop-up on their computer.
On the app side, HotSeat challenges people to get out of their seats for small breaks. It includes competitions, feedback on how your small bouts of physical activity add up to meaningful amounts. UtiliFit is another app that is breaking into this space, says LuAnn Heinen, vice president and wellness leader, National Business Group on Health.
Employers can encourage better nutrition and healthy food choices with smart receipts from the company cafeteria, says the National Business Group on Health vice president and wellness leader. When employees purchase food at the company café, the smart receipt shows the calorie and nutritional content of their food choices.
Many employees can’t afford to hire a personal trainer, but technology like Anthem’s and online trainer FitOrbit’s virtual fitness and real-time, Internet-based coaching offers fitness training without breaking the banks. After selecting a trainer based on a short questionnaire, the employee electronically receives a customized fitness and nutrition plan and ongoing coaching – the latter via the modern miracle of unlimited texting, plus a weekly personal exercise plan – to support their goals.
StickK app and website asks individuals to put up their own money for a charity that they hate if they don’t accomplish their wellness or other goal. The StickK website facilitates that transaction so that a gun control advocate, for example, would have to fork over cash to the National Rifle Association for failing to meet their goal. The platform also builds in an array of behavior principles (beyond giving away your money to a cause you oppose), among them social recognition and rewards, and feedback.