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Workplace wellness programs


dinneR

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Does your employer have one? Apparently they don't work all that well.

We have one. I'm working toward a day off. The current challenge is don't read or write work email when you are not at work. Easy for me. I don't touch my work email unless I am at work. 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/16/713902890/how-well-do-workplace-wellness-programs-work

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1 minute ago, dennis said:

Does your employer have one? Apparently they don't work all that well. 

We have one. I'm working toward a day off. The current challenge is don't read or write work email when you are not at work. Easy for me. I don't touch my work email unless I am at work. 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/04/16/713902890/how-well-do-workplace-wellness-programs-work

Every time I have seen one at a place I work - including my current place - it is so far below my current level of "wellness activity" that it seems ridiculous.  I remember one place gave out pedometers which were such a piece of junk, I couldn't figure out who would actually use or trust them. :(  If they gave me an Apple Watch or a Whoop, I'd certainly use and share the info, but, generally, if something is offered through work or through work insurance, I am pretty confident it will be shit.

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3 minutes ago, jsharr said:

if we did and not working from home was a requirement, my boss would walk all over that.  He texts and emails at all hours of the day and night.  Single, no kids, no real family, so there is his company.  

You work for Jack??? See, he practices what he preaches :)

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The type of wellness programs mentioned, for fitness are not a big deal for us.  To work here you need to pass an annual dive physical and so guys are motivated to keep in some semblance of fitness.

Given the work, metal wellness is a big deal here.  We do annual psych assessments, lots of debriefs and peer to peer counselling. I also loosen the reins a fair bit during quiet times to let the guys relax and try to find a reason for them to get in the water at least once a week (like yesterday inspecting lines) so that they do dive when there are not dead bodies in the water so they remember why they got in the job in the first place.

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10 minutes ago, Zephyr said:

The type of wellness programs mentioned, for fitness are not a big deal for us.  To work here you need to pass an annual dive physical and so guys are motivated to keep in some semblance of fitness.

Given the work, metal wellness is a big deal here.  We do annual psych assessments, lots of debriefs and peer to peer counselling. I also loosen the reins a fair bit during quiet times to let the guys relax and try to find a reason for them to get in the water at least once a week (like yesterday inspecting lines) so that they do dive when there are not dead bodies in the water so they remember why they got in the job in the first place.

do you ever do and pier to pier counseling?

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Former employer was big into spouting health and wellness campaigns, but then were often undone by their own management. 

A couple years ago, our church had a fitness competition. I am not an active member, but I am a member. Our 401K broker is a member of the church. He asked if I would be on their team. The first time he submitted the miles for the week with my run/bike miles included, the team jumped way into the lead. The other teams put in an attendance requirement. I guess he said I might have won being a team of one!

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2 minutes ago, groupw said:

Former employer was big into spouting health and wellness campaigns, but then were often undone by their own management. 

A couple years ago, our church had a fitness competition. I am not an active member, but I am a member. Our 401K broker is a member of the church. He asked if I would be on their team. The first time he submitted the miles for the week with my run/bike miles included, the team jumped way into the lead. The other teams put in an attendance requirement. I guess he said I might have won being a team of one!

that does not seem like a nice thing for a church to do.  Hate the sin, love the sinner, just substitute jog for sin.

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6 minutes ago, jsharr said:

that does not seem like a nice thing for a church to do.  Hate the sin, love the sinner, just substitute jog for sin.

I thought about riding to the early service in my kit, then riding out from there just to piss them off!

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We have some voluntary wellness programs and I enrolled in them but they aren’t really that great and are no incentives.  My company has done a good job with covering medical premiums, offering great health plans & such.

Im salaried and my role is not necessarily 8-5 so I get calls & emails after hours but it’s not excessive.

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Where I worked they had a wellness program tied to your insurance deductible. If you jumped through all their hoops they paid your deductible. They didn’t pay it outright, you had to pay it and submit it in hope that they would pay it. I had to get the union involved to get them to pay mine. It was bullshit wellness stuff anyway that I far surpassed in every category before the program ever started. They also had a bullchit stretching program where we started our shift 15 minutes early every day stretching. It amounted to less than five minutes doing stupid stretches because we had to be on the job at the start of the shift which took ten minutes to get our stuff and get to the shop where we were working that day. They paid a lot in overtime pay for that worthless program. I tried to get them to pay my gym membership instead, they turned me down. What they paid me for stretching more than paid my membership .

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Our program is voluntary. They aren't tracking fitness. We did a blood draw. Now it's a new challenge every month. The current one is don't read work email at home. Last month I had to make a plan. The first was give up something. They are pretty easy. They have a bunch of online tutorials about financial planning, eating right, mental health. It's all pretty easy stuff. If I just keep track, I'll get a day off. For me it's worth it since I don't have much vacation time.

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2 hours ago, JerrySTL said:

My company has one and is great if you track steps with something like a Fitbit. However it doesn't have anything for cycling.

Wear you fitbit on your ankle when you cycle.

1 hour ago, Longjohn said:

They also had a bullchit stretching program where we started our shift 15 minutes early every day stretching. It amounted to less than five minutes doing stupid stretches because we had to be on the job at the start of the shift which took ten minutes to get our stuff and get to the shop where we were working that day.

I've done "Stretch & Flex" routines on projects before. They do work. Our WC carrier said they work.

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2 minutes ago, 2Far said:

Wear you fitbit on your ankle when you cycle.

I've done "Stretch & Flex" routines on projects before. They do work. Our WC carrier said they work.

Lol, I’m sure some are probably better structured than ours. They can’t make us come in early and do stuff without paying us for our time. They scheduled our stretching at the time we were getting ready to start work. The least they could have done was have a cute fitness instructor lead us in our stretching program every day. I didn’t get involved with the stretching, that time was already claimed for meeting with the production foreman and getting the day’s work figured out and getting my crew informed.

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We could have used on where I taught, the largest high school in Maryland with about 140 teachers, many of whom were tremendously out of shape in a job and some obese where you are on your feet, on task, most of the day.

I offered an obese fellow chemistry teacher a paid assistant cross country position on the team where I was head coach. I told him the the other assistant and I would do all the running with the kids and he could function as a sort of "home base" that coordinated practices and recorded data for us.  He was obese but was popular with students and they'd have respected him as a coach.  I was a little overweight and told him we'd both get in better shape just from the daily walking involved.

He couldn't be bothered and joked that all the exercise would kill him.  That was 1998.  When retired on July 1, 2006 he told me he was going to retire in few more years, move to Las Vegas and become a dealer, living well with a full teacher's pension with health insurance.  Three months later he had a heart attack and died in October 2006.

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On 4/20/2019 at 3:43 PM, Square Wheels said:

How often?

I try not to abuse it, so once every couple weeks.  But reality, since all communication is done by Skype, I could work from home most days and only be in the office on the rare days I actually have something going on I physically need to be here for, like lab testing.  Now if I could figure out how to get them to setup a lab in my detached garage, I'd really be set.  I'm close to have one already, but need a couple pieces of special equipment.

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36 minutes ago, 2Far said:

We got nuthin'. Any mention of such would result in a look that conveys "whatchu talkin' about Willis?"

We operate under the unwavering principle "If we haven't done it before, then it cannot be done." This is equivalent to running your computer on Windows 3.1. 

Dos was better.

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I remember a few years ago they set up a program to entice people to quit smoking.  You could register and sign up with a witness (because we all worked off-site) and if you went 60 days without a cigarette, they would reward you with a $250 gift card.

I called in and told the health nurse that I wanted to sign up and Larry would be my witness.  HS responded "But Zeph, you dont smoke" and I told her I went and bought a pack of smokes that morning (I did, but because the boss wanted me to get some for him while I was there) and that because of her email i decided to quit and would call back when the time was done to get my money.

Two days later they cancelled the program because a number of people complained.

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2 minutes ago, Zephyr said:

I remember a few years ago they set up a program to entice people to quit smoking.  You could register and sign up with a witness (because we all worked off-site) and if you went 60 days without a cigarette, they would reward you with a $250 gift card.

I called in and told the health nurse that I wanted to sign up and Larry would be my witness.  HS responded "But Zeph, you dont smoke" and I told her I went and bought a pack of smokes that morning (I did, but because the boss wanted me to get some for him while I was there) and that because of her email i decided to quit and would call back when the time was done to get my money.

Two days later they cancelled the program because a number of people complained.

Too funny!

The report said rewards under $400 are too small to get people to change behavior. Essentially, the people who participate are doing the right things to begin with. 

I'll keep doing mine because I get paid to. It's easy, just keep track of what I am doing already. Get a day off. Most of my co-workers are not doing it. Their ears perk up when I tell them I'm going to get a day off. It has very little to do with exercise, just behavior. Quit something, don't read email when you are not working, put your cell phone away. I think there is a meditation one coming up.

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We have a program which isn't as flashy as previous years...less promotion/marketing.  We do have classes that we do pay during lunch for certain things. Some of our buildings do provide a shower or 2 with change rooms. Tiny room for light weights, elliptical machine. That's all. The rooms are used, but not continuously where I work because our location is downtown:  lots of opportunities to walk in pleasant areas compared to other locations that in light industrial areas or far flung suburban fringes.  Occasionally we're told we can have counselling via our health care benefit.  

To control financial liability, about 2 yrs. ago, controls were put in for us to take our vacation days not let them pile up a lot near retirement.

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