Tags: workplace, stress, health, collaboration, flexibility

Categories: News

Programs in the workplace designed to get people to exercise can improve fitness, cut cholesterol levels, reduce job stress and even improve attendance, a new analysis of the medical literature shows.

But it's still not clear what makes for the most effective type of program, Dr. Vicki S. Conn of the University of Missouri in Columbia, the lead author of the research, told Reuters Health.

"We do have really good evidence that the interventions do work," she said. "What we couldn't say from this is that this intervention works better than that intervention."

Conn and her colleagues looked at dozens of studies of workplace physical activity interventions. The studies included about 38,000 people.

They found significant positive effects for the interventions on "physical activity behavior," meaning whether or not people became more active, and also on fitness level. The programs also helped fuel healthy changes in lipids (meaning harmful fats in the blood such as triglycerides), measures of body size, work attendance, and job stress, the researchers report.

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Tags: health, workplace, stress

Categories: News

Amid the highest unemployment rate in recent decades and massive job losses around the country, most workers feel happy to at least be employed. What they aren't feeling, however, is healthy.

One in three workers has at least one symptom of clinical depression; 41 percent say they feel stressed sometimes, often, or very often; and one in five has trouble falling asleep often or very often. In all, 14 percent are being treated for high cholesterol and one in five is taking blood-pressure-lowering medication.

In fact, the percentage of workers who say they're in excellent health has dropped from 34 percent in 2002 to 28 percent in 2008, according to a report recently released by the Families and Work Institute (FWI), a nonprofit research company.

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Tags: workplace, health, stress, benefits

Categories: News

(From KaiserHealthNews.org) Some companies offer discounts to healthy employees, but patient advocates fear such wellness programs could be unfair.

NPR's Renee Montagne interviews Safeway Inc. CEO Steve Burd, who "says employees receive a discount on their health insurance if their body mass index is below 30, the number over which people are considered obese." If someone's BMI is above 30, they pay $318 more, he explains, "[b]ut the beauty of our plan is that if you make a reduction of, let's say 10 percent of your body mass index, we write you a check at the end of the year for making that progress. …On a per capita basis, Burd says, Safeway has kept its costs flat for the past five years. He argues that if similar programs were implemented across the nation, health care spending would be drastically reduced."

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Tags: workplace, health, hr news

Categories: News

(Tallahassee.com, Will Brown, June 1, 2009) The workplace is filled with stressful land mines, especially as companies announce furloughs, corporations slash employee pay and state agencies lay off workers in the coming weeks. Managing that stress is critical not only to production, but one's mental health, said Melvina MacDonald, director of the Employee Assistance Program at Tallahassee Memorial Healthcare.

"We still in our country have some stigma about mental-health issues," MacDonald said. She used as an example the Employee Assistance Program that's offered in workplaces.

"Such programs help people deal with all kinds of issues including mental health, and they don't need to come forward to anyone in the workplace," she said.

Earlier this year, Wayne Hochwarter, the Jim Moran Professor of Management at Florida State University's College of Business, found more than 70 percent of men and women stated the recession has significantly increased the stress levels of employees.

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Tags: economy, recession, workplace, health

Categories: The Economy

A story published at Risk & Insurance Online reports on the necessity for managers in particular to gain thorough understanding of the role of safety and health in the workplace. The story states that "according to the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation, every newly minted supervisor -- whether from inside or outside the company -- requires training and mentoring before he can be expected to perform at a high level."

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Tags: safety, training, new managers, health, performance, mentoring

Categories: News