The Perfect Workspace According to Science
Originally posted by Christian Jarrett on https://99u.com
The spaces we occupy shape who we are and how we behave. This has serious consequences for our psychological well-being and creative performance. Given that many of us spend years working in the same room, or even at the same desk, it makes sense to organize and optimize that space in the most beneficial ways possible.
When it comes to building your workspace you can aim for the trendy look and flick through some interior design mags, or you can let science guide the way. Based on recent psychology and neuroscience findings, here are some simple and effective steps you can take once to improve your productivity for years:
Take ownership of your workspace
The simple act of making your own decisions about how to organize your workspace has an empowering effect and has been linked with improved productivity.
Craig Knight, Director of the Identity Realization workplace consultancy, showed this in a 2010 study with Alex Haslam involving 47 office workers in London. Those workers given the opportunity to arrange a small office with as many or few plants and pictures as they wanted were up to 32 percent more productive than others not given this control. They also identified more with their employer, a sign of increased commitment to the team effort and increased efficiency.
If you are an office manager this suggests you should give your staff as much input into the design of their office and immediate workspace as possible. Many companies even give their employees a small amount of money to furnish their space. Alternatively, if you’re a creative in an open-plan office, try to find ways to make your mark on your immediate environment. Even the simple use of a pin-board to post your own pictures and messages could help you feel that the space is yours with consequent benefits for your work.
Choose rounded furniture and arrange it wisely
If you have the luxury of designing your own workspace, consider choosing a layout and furniture that is curved and rounded rather than sharp and straight-edged. Creating this environment has been linked with positive emotions, which is known to be beneficial for creativity and productivity (added bonus: there’s also less chance of knocking an elbow or knee on a sharp corner).
In a 2011 study, hundreds of undergrads looked at computer-generated pictures of room interiors and rated those filled with curvilinear (rounded), as opposed to rectilinear, furniture as more pleasing and inviting. Another study out this year found that people rated curvy, rounded environments as more beautiful than straight-edged rectilinear environments and that the rounded spaces triggered more activity in brain regions associated with reward and aesthetic appreciation.
This contrast between straight edges and curves also extends to the way we arrange our furniture. Apparently, King Arthur was on to something: sitting in circles provokes a collective mindset, whereas sitting in straight lines triggers feelings of individuality – something worth thinking about at your next meeting if you want to encourage team cohesion.
Apparently, King Arthur was on to something: sitting in circles provokes a collective mindset.
Take advantage of color, light and space
Choosing the right color and lighting scheme for your office is one of the simplest ways your environment can enhance your performance. Different colors and light levels have different psychological effects, so the ideal situation is to install a lighting system that allows you to alter the hue and brightness of your room to suit the kind of work that you’re engaged in.
For instance, exposure to both blue and green has been shown to enhance performance on tasks that require generating new ideas. However, the color redhas been linked with superior performance on tasks involving attention to detail. Another study out this year showed that a dimmer environment fostered superior creativity in terms of idea generation, probably because it encourages a feeling of freedom. On the other hand, brighter light levels were more conducive to analytical and evaluative thinking.
Not as easy to modify, but ceiling height has also been shown to have psychological effects. A 2007 study found that a higher ceiling was associated with feelings of freedom, together with a more abstract and relational thinking style that helped participants see the commonalities between objects and concepts.
Make use of plants and windows
If you only do one thing to optimize your workspace, invest in a green plant or two.Research has repeatedly shown that the presence of office plants has a range of benefits including helping workers recover from demanding activities and lowering stress levels. As a bonus, there’s also evidence that plants can reduce office pollution levels.
Another feature of an optimized office is a window with a view, preferably of a natural landscape. This is because a glance at the hills or a lake recharges your mind. Obviously a view of nature isn’t possible for many people who work in cities, but even in an urban situation, a view of trees or intricate architecture have both been linked with restorative benefits. If you can’t negotiate a desk with a view, another plan is to choose an office in your building that’s the shortest stroll from an urban park. A visit here will revitalize your mind and compensate for your lack of a view.
If you only do one thing to optimize your workspace, invest in a green plant or two.
The benefits of a messy desk
There’s a lot of pressure these days to be organized. How are you supposed to get your work done if you can’t even find a clear space on your desk to roll a mouse or place a plant? But new research suggests Einstein may have been onto something when he opined: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”
Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota found that participants tested in a messy room at a desk covered with paper came up with more imaginative uses for a ping pong ball than participants tested in a tidy room. This matches the views of consultant Craig Knight who has argued against the modern trend for “lean” workspaces. “We don’t understand psychologically why putting someone in an impoverished space should work, when it doesn’t work for any other animal on the planet,” he said recently.
It also fits with the advice from Eric Abrahamson – co-author of A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder – who says people with highly ordered desks oftenstruggle to find things because their filing systems are so complicated. He also points out a key advantage to a mess – you can find things in it that you didn’t expect. Discovering that ground-breaking idea you scribbled on a piece of paper two years ago could be just the spark to get your next project off the ground.
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It’s easy to neglect the importance of your workspace, especially if you’re under pressure of deadlines and not so into interior design. But hopefully this review has convinced you that the spaces we occupy really can affect us psychologically. It’s vital that you choose an office space that you feel happy and comfortable in. If your freedom is restricted, shape the space as much as you can to make it your own. Get your surroundings in order and the rest is sure to follow.
Red-meat eaters increase risk of diabetes with more portions
Originally posted by Nicole Ostraw on https://ebn.benefitnews.com
(Bloomberg) -- Eating more red meat over time raises the risk of getting Type 2 diabetes, while cutting back reduces the danger, research shows.
Consuming an additional half-serving a day of red meat during a four-year period increased a person’s chance of developing diabetes by 48% in the subsequent four years, according to a study this month in JAMA Internal Medicine. Reducing red meat consumption lowered diabetes risk long term, says lead study author An Pan.
The study is the first to look at changes in red meat consumption over time and how that affects diabetes risk, Pan says. The results confirm previous research that had linked red meat intake to diabetes risk and suggests that limiting the amount of beef, pork and lamb people eat is beneficial, he says.
“If possible, try to reduce red meat and replace with other healthy choices like beans and legumes, nuts, fish, poultry, whole grains, etc.,” says Pan, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore.
The meat contains high amounts of an iron that can cause insulin resistance, which may raise the risk of diabetes, he says. The food is also high in saturated fat and cholesterol and processed forms have nitrates and high levels of sodium that may also increase the danger of developing the disease, he says.
Researchers analyzed data and followed up with 26,357 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, 48,709 women in the Nurses’ Health Study and 74,077 women in the Nurses’ Health Study 2. They assessed their diets through questionnaires every four years.
There were 7,540 cases of type 2 diabetes over the study.
The research showed that reducing red meat consumption by more than a half a serving per day from the start of the trial through the first four years of follow up resulted in a 14% lower risk of diabetes over the entire time period.
In an accompanying editorial, William Evans, vice president and head of the Muscle Metabolism Discovery Performance Unit at London-based GlaxoSmithKline Plc and an adjunct professor of geriatrics at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., writes that it may not be the type of meat but the fat that can raise diabetes risk.
“There’s no reason why the color of meat itself is the thing that results in an increased risk in diabetes,” he says. “The overwhelming data would tell us it’s the amount of saturated fat. A chunk of cheddar cheese has as much fat and saturated fat as a T-bone steak.”
He says another study looking to find similar links between dairy, which can be high in saturated fats, and diabetes is needed to determine if the fats are the culprits.
Saturated fats increase inflammation in the body, leading to heart disease and insulin resistance.
The 4-Minute Workout
Originally published by Gretchen Reynolds on The New York Times health blog.
Thanks to an ingratiating new study, we may finally be closer to answering that ever-popular question regarding our health and fitness: How little exercise can I get away with?
The answer, it seems, may be four minutes.
For the study, which was published last month in the journal PLoS One, researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, and other institutions attempted to delineate the minimum amount of exercise required to develop appreciable endurance and health gains. They began by reconsidering their own past work, which had examined the effects of a relatively large dose of high-intensity intervals on various measures of health and fitness.
For those unfamiliar with the term, high-intensity intervals are just that: bursts of strenuous exercise lasting anywhere from 30 seconds to several minutes, interspersed with periods of rest. In recent years, a wealth of studies have established that sessions of high-intensity exercises can be as potent, physiologically, as much longer bouts of sustained endurance exercise.
In a representative study from 2010, for instance, Canadian researchers showed that 10 one-minute intervals — essentially, 10 minutes of strenuous exercise braided with one-minute rest periods between — led to the same changes within muscle cells as about 90 minutes of moderate bike riding.
Similarly, the Norwegian scientists for some years have been studying the effects of intense intervals lasting for four minutes, performed at about 90 percent of each volunteer’s maximum heart rate and repeated four times, with a three-minute rest between each interval. The total meaningful exercise time in these sessions, then, is 16 minutes.
Which, the researchers thought, might just be too much.
“One of the main reasons people give” for not exercising is that they don’t have time, says Arnt Erik Tjonna, a postdoctoral fellow at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who led the study.
So he and his colleagues decided to slim down the regimen and determine whether a single, strenuous four-minute workout would effectively improve health and fitness.
To do so, they gathered 26 overweight and sedentary but otherwise healthy middle-aged men, determined their baseline endurance and cardiovascular and metabolic health, and randomly assigned them to one of two groups.
Half began a supervised exercise program that reiterated the Norwegian researchers’ former routine. After briefly warming up, these volunteers ran on a treadmill at 90 percent of their maximal heart rate — a tiring pace, says Dr. Tjonna, at which “you cannot talk in full sentences, but can use single words” — for four four-minute intervals, with three minutes of slow walking between, followed by a brief cool-down. The entire session was repeated three times a week for 10 weeks.
The second group, however, completed only one four-minute strenuous run. They, too, exercised three times a week for 10 weeks.
At the end of the program, the men had increased their maximal oxygen uptake, or endurance capacity, by an average of 10 percent or more, with no significant differences in the gains between the two groups.
Metabolic and cardiovascular health likewise had improved in both groups, with almost all of the men now displaying better blood sugar control and blood pressure profiles, whether they had exercised vigorously for 16 minutes per session, or four minutes per session, and despite the fact that few of the men had lost much body fat.
“This is not a weight-loss program,” Dr. Tjonna says. It is, instead, he says, “a suggestion for how people can make a kick-start for better fitness,” or maintain fitness already gained, when other obligations press on your time.
The results, Dr. Tjonna says, persuasively suggest that “getting in shape does not demand a big effort” in terms of time.
That finding, though, inevitably raises the question of whether the bar could drop even lower. Could, for instance, a mere two minutes of strenuous training effectively improve health and fitness?
Dr. Tjonna, the killjoy, doubts it. There are other groups of scientists looking at even shorter bouts of exercise, he says, “but it seems like they don’t get the same results regarding the maximal oxygen uptake” as the four-minute sessions used in his experiment. Since improved maximal oxygen uptake can reliably indicate better overall cardiovascular health, he suspects that “we need a certain length of the interval to trigger” such health and fitness benefits.
Thankfully, for those worried that a trip to the gym is an inefficient means of completing four minutes of exercise, the workout can effectively be practiced anywhere, Dr. Tjonna says. Sprint uphill for four minutes or race up multiple flights of steps. Bicycle, swim or even walk briskly, as long as you raise your heart rate sufficiently for four minutes. (Obviously, consult your doctor first if you haven’t been active in the past.)
“Everyone, we think,” Dr. Tjonna says, “has time for this kind of exercise three times a week.”
Special thanks to the Reduced Shakespeare Company and Christopher McDougall for their contributions to the Well 4-Minute Workout playlist.
Weight Watchers for business: What former executive knows about corporate wellness
Original article from https://www.bizjournals.com
By Brianne Pfannenstiel
Romy Carlson knows as well as anyone that getting corporate America on board with office weight loss programs is almost as challenging as actually losing weight.
The former Weight Watchers executive just signed on with corporate wellness company Retrofit as vice president of business development.
She'll be based here in Kansas City and will oversee the development and acquisition of new business. With about 17 years of experience in the field of corporate wellness, she said she knows that getting busy executives to commit to office weight loss or wellness programs comes with a unique set of challenges.
"It's an interesting arena because at first you would think that maybe people are just scared of it, maybe executives are nervous because they don't necessarily manage their own health so how do they push it out to their employees?" Carlson said.
Male CEOs are actually more likely to be overweight than men within the general population, according to one study from Michigan State University.
The study showed that between 45 and 61 percent of top male CEOs are overweight, and between 5 and 22 percent of top female CEOs are overweight.
"So far there really hasn't been a great technology-based program that serves the busy professional," Carlson said.
That's one reason she got on board at Retrofit — it's Weight Watchers, in a sense, tailored specifically for professionals in the workplace.
Companies sign up to partner with Retrofit and can subsidize membership fees for its employees. Retrofit then sends each participant a wireless activity tracker and a wireless scale, both of which automatically upload the data to a team of Retrofit professionals who meet individually with the employees to discuss personalized wellness programs.
Training Is the Key to Effective Wellness Programs
Original article from safetydailyadvisor.blr.com
By Chris Kilbourne
Many employers turn to wellness programs to manage healthcare costs and improve employee productivity. However, recent research shows that educating employees about the programs is critical to their success.
"Well on the Way: Engaging Employees in Workplace Wellness," a white paper released by Colonial Life & Accident Insurance Company, explains that strong communication drives the effectiveness of wellness programs. The company has found that more than half of workers do not know enough about their company’s wellness programs to participate in them. In fact, 52 percent of workers whose employers offer wellness programs say they are only somewhat or not at all knowledgeable about them, and the lack of knowledge is highest among young workers, less-educated workers, and lower-paid workers.
"Just offering a wellness program and expecting a majority of employees to participate—the 'if you build it, they will come' scenario—is prone to failure," says Steve Bygott, assistant vice president of marketing analysis and programs at Colonial Life. "Communication that clearly delineates the benefits of participation to employees is the first step to long-term engagement in wellness programs."
Case Studies
Winners of the National Business Group on Health's 2012 Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles awards, for example, have demonstrated a commitment to promoting wellness and educating employees about it.
Cardinal Health received an award for its Healthy Lifestyles program, which is part of the company’s overarching benefits strategy to support the well being and development of its employees. Cardinal Health incorporates work/life effectiveness initiatives, programs, and incentives that emphasize wellness and prevention. Among other offerings, the company provides its employees with education and awareness programs, as well as health coaching.
NextEra Energy, Inc. is another award-winner. Its NextEra Health & Well-Being initiative provides a wide variety of health and productivity management programs—with services in five primary categories: health promotion, fitness, nutrition and weight management, health centers, and an employee assistance program.
Other award winners include American Express® and HP.
American Express's Healthy Living corporate wellness program encourages preventive care and healthy lifestyles. Developed in 2009, the program was introduced in an effort to help employees achieve greater physical, psychological, financial, and social wellbeing through superior resources, enhanced access to care, and incentives to foster healthy changes, including health coaching, on-site medical clinics, and lifestyle and disease management programs. The company also received a Best Communication Tactics award for its global communication efforts to engage employees and develop a strong culture of wellness.
HP has created a global culture of wellness with its Winning with Wellness initiative. The program, which was implemented in 33 countries over the course of 1 year, equips employees with user-friendly tools and resources to take charge of—and be accountable for—managing their personal wellness, according to Aon Hewitt, which worked with HP to, among other things, articulate its wellness strategy and create a plan to implement and communicate the initiative globally.
Why It Matters
- More organizations are realizing the connection between wellness programs and the productivity of employees and the profitability of their companies.
- More organizations are, therefore, instituting wellness programs of various kinds ranging from gym membership subsidies to weight loss programs and smoking cessation plans.
- As today's Advisor indicates, however, merely starting a wellness program isn’t enough; wellness training and education about the programs are critical steps to making wellness programs effective.
Lowering salt intake to improve health may backfire
Original article from eba.benefitnews.com
By Anna Edney
Lowering sodium intake, a drumbeat of doctors’ efforts to improve patient health, may have the opposite effect if taken to the extreme, scientists said.
U.S. dietary guidelines to reduce sodium intake to 1,500 milligrams a day for certain people aren’t supported by enough scientific evidence, an Institute of Medicine panel said in a recent report. Studies reviewed by the panel didn’t prove health outcomes improved when salt consumption was cut to that level.
“Lowering sodium intake too much may actually increase a person’s risk of some health problems,” says Brian Strom, the panel chairman and a public health professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. The studies still “support previous findings that reducing sodium from very high intake levels to moderate levels improves health.”
Adults consume an average 3,400 milligrams of salt each day. The U.S. recommends 2,300 milligrams for the general public and as low as 1,500 milligrams for those with high blood pressure, diabetes or chronic kidney disease, black people and people older than age 50. The American Heart Association, which advises 1,500 milligrams for everyone, challenged the report.
“The report is missing a critical component — a comprehensive review of well-established evidence which links too much sodium to high blood pressure and heart disease,” says Nancy Brown, chief executive officer of the association.
In addition, studies that don’t show a benefit on heart disease or adverse effects were conducted on sick people, the Dallas-based association said in a statement.
Complex changes
The IOM panel said it looked at studies that measured health outcomes such as heart disease and death rather than high blood pressure as an indicator of heart disease.
“These studies make clear that looking at sodium’s effects on blood pressure is not enough to determine dietary sodium’s ultimate impact on health,” Strom says. “Changes in diet are more complex than simply changing a single mineral. More research is needed to understand these pathways.”
The report recognizes that blood pressure is only one of many factors that should be considered when evaluating dietary changes, the Salt Institute, an Alexandria, Virginia-based trade group that represents companies including Morton Salt Inc., said in a statement. Morton Satin, vice president of science and research for the Salt Institute, praised the report’s caution against reducing sodium to 1,500 milligrams.
Potential harm
“The recognition by the IOM experts that such low levels may cause harm may help steer overzealous organizations away from reckless recommendations,” Satin says.
The panel’s report didn’t list what a healthy sodium range would be, and the authors said further research is needed on associations between lower levels of sodium and health outcomes.
The Institute of Medicine, the health arm of the Washington-based nonprofit National Academies, provides medical advice to policy makers and the public. The report was sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Employers getting pushy in drive to better health
Original article from benefitspro.com
By Allen Greenberg
Short of bribery and potentially violating anti-discrimination laws by not hiring obese smokers, there’s little employers can do to improve the health of their workforce.
Or is there?
What looks to be a growing number of employers are, in fact, embracing outcomes-based disincentives to prod employees to achieve specific health outcomes, rather than merely enroll in their wellness programs.
Off the bat, I know that sounds like Big Brother. But I also think it sounds like a constructive and fairly non-intrusive way for employers to try to regain some control in the losing battle to reign in health care costs.
The Midwest Business Group of Health, a Chicago-based nonprofit group with more than 120 large, self-insured public and private employers, dug into this question in one of its latest surveys and came up with some interesting findings about the carrots and sticks employers rely on.
Let’s start with what everyone enjoys.
Among employers offering incentives, 62 percent report they offer employees who follow their wellness programs reduced premiums. Another 38 percent use gift cards and 35 percent offer merchandise.
Not bad. Put down the Hershey’s Kisses between meals and get a nicely loaded Starbucks gift card at the end of the month.
Actually, in a lot of instances, we’re talking about something of much greater value. Twenty-two percent of the companies in the survey reported their incentives were worth $500-$1,000.
Seventy-one percent of the surveyed companies said they found their incentive strategy was “very successful” or “successful.”
So, how about the stick?
More than 37 percent said they have begun to rely on penalties in response to nonparticipation in their wellness rewards. Increased health care premiums and coverage plan limitations are among the more common sticks.
This is a new trend, to be sure, so there’s some measure of experimentation going on and certainly room for improvement. Just 45 percent of those surveyed viewed their disincentive strategy as “very successful” or “successful.”
That shouldn’t be taken to mean we won’t see more of this. As Cheryl Larson, vice president for the Midwest Business Group on Health, will tell you, employers are fairly desperate nowadays to find ways to save health care dollars.
Which is why more than 40 percent of those surveyed now expect their employees to kick in a higher share of their plan premiums if they don’t stay on track with the company’s wellness programs, while another 16 percent are considering doing so.
Wellness programs have been around for decades, but there’s still a lot for HR managers to learn about what works and what doesn’t, and there's naturally going to be squeamishness about pulling out disincentives.
One key lesson shared by an employer cited in the MBGH survey:
“Even though our employees were not happy about the implementation of the program, we have a very compliant population. We know they complain about it, but they end up participating to take advantage of the incentives.”
In other words, yes, incentives, are always going to be popular. But if they don’t work, you might try throwing a few disincentives into the mix, rather than tossing away millions more in benefits dollars.
Putting the 'cent' in incentives
Original article https://ebn.benefitnews.com
By Kathleen Koster
In addition to popular incentives for participating in wellness program activities, employers and insurance carriers have turned to outcomes-based incentives hoping to lower plan costs and improve population health. While laws such as HIPAA, ERISA and, most recently, PPACA provide guidance for incentivizing employees to improve body metrics and sustain healthy behaviors, plan sponsors should tread cautiously around more aggressive incentives and premium surcharge strategies.
Employers' focus on rewarding healthy results "has been fueled by regulation," says Eric Herbek, vice president for consumer health product at Cigna. Specifically, the health care reform law increased the percentage employers can award as an incentive or disincentive from 20% of the individual health premium to 30% and up to a 50% differential if they include a smoking metric.
Activity-based incentives can spur participants to complete a health risk assessment or biometric screening, self-report physical activity, or join a pregnancy class or other program that requires action, but not necessarily achieve outcomes. "These can be highly effective tools to tailor action and identify risk for the individual and make a plan for a healthier lifestyle, but doesn't necessarily translate into financial results," says Herbek.
That's why the wellness industry is moving toward an outcomes-based incentive model that measures health outcomes such as tobacco use, BMI, cholesterol, blood pressure or blood glucose levels. Penalizing smoking is most popular among wellness programs, with many employers applying a premium surcharge against smokers. But employers can reward or apply a penalty for each metric. According to Frank Hone, managing director of Healthcentric Partners, Inc., many employers are considering structuring incentives as a tiered health plan, similar to the auto insurance market.
In terms of implementation, Hone suggests determining how a wellness incentive structure fits in with the employer's overall human capital approach and company culture. Another factor is whether the employer is more paternalistic or leans toward a model of accountability based on the insurance plan selected. A value-based plan or consumer-driven health plan would have accountability built into the overall structure. For example, employees could earn additional contributions into their health savings accounts by participating in a health coaching series or achieving a health goal.
"The employer wants to fund some aspect of the HSA, but also wants to ensure that there's skin in the game by the participant" so that they take action, adds Hone.
To keep incentive structures compliant with health laws and regulations, employers should give all participants an equal opportunity to earn the reward and not design specific incentives for any particular segment. Legal experts recommend having an alternative available to help individuals achieve their goals and for those unable to reach a goal. For example, they advise employers with premium surcharges for smokers to offer smoking-cessation programs and tools through their wellness program. For BMI goals, employers should consider offering employees with penalized BMIs a chance to enroll in a weight loss program or to make improvements to earn the premium discount.
To comply with HIPAA nondiscrimination requirements, the employer doesn't need to know the alternatives if an employee can't reasonably achieve a lower BMI, for instance, but they should clearly state in their plan document and notices outlining the wellness program that such alternatives exist. They can determine the alternative standard, if an employee asks for an alternative, with possible input from their individual's doctor, suggests Tiffany Downs, a partner with FordHarrison LLP.
"Our view is that employers don't have to offer a weight management program as an alternative, but we advise that employers with an outcome-based incentive program offer some form of alternative for participants who don't meet the optimal rates as a cultural shift [takes place]," advises Herbek. He suggests employers take a tempered approach and don't move from zero incentives to a rigid incentive approach immediately.
Downs recommends employers implement wellness incentives as part of a group health plan to avoid litigation under discrimination of employment laws. She adds that employers should pay attention to state laws because some states allow for smokers' rights.
The number one red flag she sees is prohibiting individuals from enrolling into a health plan until they lower their BMI or achieve another health outcome, which could violate HIPAA's discrimination rule.
To avoid penalties, she suggests that "the more aggressive the wellness program, the more cautious the employer should be before implementing it and getting legal counsel before applying incentives."
Cigna's Herbek believes the next stage in incentive programs will be making metric reporting easier to monitor. Instead of self-reporting data or measuring health status in a lab, self-monitoring devices that are objective will measure the individual's health.
Precise health testing by the participant will follow what auto insurance companies have started. The Progressive Snapshot program reports the speed of driving, through remote monitoring plugged into the car, and drivers can earn great rates if they drive safely.
Cigna already has teamed up with BodyMedia to measure health and fitness aspects with wearable devices. Eventually, these "can be used as a reinforcement mechanism to help people achieve healthy goals," he says, adding that Cigna professionals are looking at how to apply results to a premium incentive plan.
Hone believes that as employers look to address stress and emotional health in the workplace, they will need to move away from incentives that typically work as a stick for physical improvements.
"I'm hopeful that as an industry we can move away from these pay- for-performance ideas for individuals towards a tiered insurance plan structure that will educate individuals and guide them toward better lifestyles," Hone says.
"We're missing the big picture: the strategy of promoting healthy living. The industry has fallen into the trap of paying people to change their behavior instead of really investing in education, information, motivation and other aspects that influence and give individuals the personal reasons why they should behave differently, adjust their lifestyle or be happier."
He believes that incentives do play a role in promoting better health, but are best delivered in the context of a tiered health plan. Participants who pay more for premiums will be the same demographic that utilizes the health system at a higher rate because of the behavior they've chosen, not a genetic condition.
Employers report increased use of health incentives
A pair of recently released surveys from Aon Hewitt indicate that employers are increasingly turning to incentives to drive health programs and get employees to take actions to improve their well being. Eighty-three percent of 800 American employers use some form of incentive to get employees more aware of their health status, the consulting firm finds.
Out of the 83% that uses incentives, 79% offer rewards, 5% offer consequences, and 16% offer a mix of both. In terms of dollar amounts, 64% use monetary incentives of between $50 and $500, and 18% use incentives of more than $500.
"Employers recognize the first step in getting people on a path to good health is providing employees and their families with the opportunity to become informed and educated about their health risks and the modifiable behaviors that cause those risks," says Jim Winkler, chief innovation officer for health and benefits at Aon Hewitt.
"HRQs and biometric screenings are the key tools in providing that important information and serve as the foundation that links behaviors to action. Motivating people to participate through the use of incentives is a best practice in the industry, and these strategies will continue to be a critical part of employers' health care strategies in the future."
A separate Aon Hewitt survey - conducted in partnership with the National Business Group on Health and the Futures Company - reports that 86% of employees who received suggested action steps based on their HRQ results took some action.
Further, more than half of employers who offered incentives saw improved health behaviors and/or an increase in employee engagement.
Of those employers who offer incentives, 24% say they offer them for progress toward, or attainment of ,acceptable ranges for biometric measures such as blood pressure, body mass index, blood sugar and cholesterol.
More than two-thirds say they are considering this approach in the next three to five years. Fifty-eight percent are planning, in the next few years, to impose consequences on participants who do not take appropriate actions for improving their health. -Tristan Lejeune
HealthyWage puts a little betting in competitive weight loss
Source: https://ebn.benefitnews.com
By Tristan Lejeune
Jon Whicker had a weight-loss problem. The finance manager and father of two from Utah, who at his heaviest weighed in at about 400 pounds, had joined a dieting competition with some family members. Several weeks in, things were going great until Whicker, 37, encountered an unusual dilemma: He had lost too much too quickly.
HealthyWage is a weight-loss initiative with an interesting twist — participants have bet their own money and stand to gain considerable payouts — but for health and safety reasons they place limits on shed poundage in a given timeframe, limits Whicker had broken. For the $10,000 prize Matchup competition, rules cap loss at 16.59% of starting weight over a 12-week period.
“I maxed out,” Whicker says. “I was 1% above that, like 17%.” Many people would call that an enviable problem, and indeed Whicker could sense success.
“Once that competition was over, I wanted to keep going; I wasn’t ready to stop yet, so I actually got a group of people from my office to do it with me,” he says. “So we competed in a second challenge in which I lost 16.4% of my body weight.”
That’s of his new starting body weight. All told, Whicker has lost 125 lbs. and gained $2,200 through the HealthWage programs, and he’s not done — he wants to get rid of another 50.
“Having some skin in the game encourages you not to give up, that is for sure,” Whicker says. “I could see teams giving up if they really hadn’t put any money out there. For me, just the competition keeps me motivated.”
That “skin in the game,” HealthyWage officials say, is significantly more of a motivator than the traditional incentives that employers offer with weight-loss programs. The wagered risk (and competitive nature) of betting on your own diet and exercise is seeing marked success, they report. HealthyWage officials says they offer a 49% and 29% success rates, respectively, for 5%+ and 10%+ weight loss.
HealthyWage offers three basic competition formats, all of which it says suit the workplace perfectly: The Matchup, in which teams of five compete together to lose the most weight (again, up to 16.59%); the 10% Challenge, where participants can double their money if they lose 10% of their body weight in six months; and the BMI Challenge, which rewards achieving a healthy body mass index.
Employers turn to tech for wellness
Source: https://www.benefitspro.com
By Amanda McGrory-Dixon
More employers are relying on new technologies to promote health engagement and attain targeted employee behavior changes, according to a new study by Buck Consultants and WorldatWork.
Specifically, 62 percent of respondents report using gamification and believe it is most effective, and 31 percent of respondents say they are likely to implement gamification in the next year. Fifty percent of respondents use social networking, though there are concerns over personal privacy. Another 36 percent of respondents use mobile technology, which is the least used, but 40 percent of respondents say they expect to rely on mobile technology in the future.
Additionally, 73 percent of respondents say they have implemented health engagement strategies, measure communication effective have a health engagement strategy in place and measurement of communication effectiveness, but return on investment could use more help.
While roughly half of respondents say mobile technology will be the most prevalent technology used by employers in the next two years, only 11 percent of respondents report measuring ROI on mobile apps and social media platforms, and 21 percent of respondents say they measure ROI on gamification.
“The lack of measurement is due, in part, to the fact that many companies are using third parties, such as health insurers and wellness program vendors, to handle various aspects of their wellness programs,” says Lenny Sanicola, CBP, senior benefits practice leader of WorldatWork. “These companies should direct their vendors to better engage employees and to collaborate on measuring effectiveness.”
The survey reveals that the largest obstacle from keeping respondents using these technologies is budgeting at 71 percent for gamification, 73 percent for mobile technology and 68 percent for social networking. Respondents also say lack of senior management support and no effectiveness measurements are barriers for these technologies. When it comes to social media, 43 percent of respondents say they have blocked some or all sites from employees’ computers.
“Today’s health care benefits require individuals to absorb an increasing share of expanding health care costs,” says Scot Marcotte, managing director of talent and human resources solutions at Buck Consulting. “Technology offers unprecedented ways for employers to motivate and enable employees to become more effective health care consumers. But employers need to better understand what drives their workers to make the desired changes.”