Workplace Wellness that Works

Workplace wellness programs have been around for years, but there is abundant evidence suggesting that the traditional model simply is not working. For starters, the rates of obesity, stress, and lifestyle-related disease continue to rise. Nearly half of all Americans now suffer from some form of chronic health condition. This is enormously expensive to both society and business. Making matters worse, traditional methods of encouraging workplace wellness don't necessarily cut costs either the evidence of ROI for wellness programs is mixed at best. Workplace Wellness that Works brings a breath of fresh air to this current state of affairs. In this book, top wellness consultant and sought-after speaker Laura Putnam shows how to take an outside-the-box, more effective approach to designing wellness programs. She illustrates why true health and well-being cannot be mandated but must be pursued voluntarily. Workplace Wellness that Works offers avenues to generate inspiration at all levels of an organization and infuse well-being into the workplace. Readers will learn how to move beyond top-down compliance initiatives and build well-being directly into their organizational cultures. Research clearly shows that simply putting wellness programs in place does not necessarily guarantee employee participation. The steps in Workplace Wellness that Works address this dilemma and provide guidance on engaging people in their own well-being and tying health and wellness to overall performance improvement. Businesses that have taken a more creative approach to workplace wellness have achieved outstanding results. Using a practical 10-step path to creating and implementing an innovative wellness program, Laura Putnam shows that cultures of vitality are not just for cutting-edge companies but can be achieved in any organization. Workplace Wellness that Works provides thoughtful tips on how to generate leadership engagement and, when necessary, how to "sneak" wellness-related elements into organizational development. Change is always a challenge, and the best new initiatives are context-sensitive. These two truths are woven seamlessly into Workplace Wellness that Works, which provides examples, resources, and action items for taking an evolutionary approach to promoting employee health and well-being. Whereas many authors have devised one-size-fits-all frameworks for workplace wellness, Laura Putnam shows readers a research-based path to identifying what will work best in their unique situations. This innovative approach will help wellness and human resources professionals, as well as managers and executives, re-frame the way they think about health and well-being in the workplace.