HRANB Newsletter

Many employees now have access to workplace wellness programs. To various degrees, many employers actively promote health, fitness and good nutrition through initiatives such as contests, fitness subsidies and onsite education programs. Today, 67 per cent of Canadian health plan members evaluate their health as being excellent or very good, and 88 per cent state they eat well and exercise regularly.¹

In theory, investing in wellness is a win-win: employees receive support to improve their overall health, and employers reap the benefits of having happier and healthier workers. After talking about workplace wellness for years now, and seeing programs implemented, we should see an improvement in the overall health of the Canadian workforce, right?

Wrong. While employees feel they are eating better and exercising more, which are both key elements for reducing symptoms of stress, it appears it is not enough. According to the 2008 sanofi-aventis Healthcare Survey, 39 per cent of participants stated their workplace stress was so overwhelming that it had made them physically ill at times, an increase of 14 per cent since 2005.

Have we done all that we can to alleviate the effects of stress in our work environments? With the constant demands of our competitive business world, feeling pressure at work is a fact of life for most employees. Some even thrive on it: stress can be a motivator and increase productivity. However, it can also be destructive, trigger depression or the development of addictions and lead to fatigue, heart disease, digestive problems, high blood pressure or back pain.²

According to the Canada Safety Council, mental health issues are the fastest growing category of disability costs in Canada. Not addressing workplace stress leads to absenteeism, disability, low productivity and increased staff turnover. What can we do to reduce the impact of stress and why aren’t current wellness initiatives effectively addressing these issues?

The absence of true change in organizational cultures plays a large part in this phenomenon. Leading by example is a simple, yet often overlooked, fundamental. Research has clearly shown that leadership significantly impacts not only engagement, but also employee health. Have we created environments that truly value job satisfaction or have we simply implemented wellness initiatives without questioning whether or not they were in line and supported by the culture of the workplace? In most organizations, the answer would be “no”.

For wellness initiatives to work, they clearly need a wellness champion; one to take the pulse of the organization. In the electronic age of Blackberries, cell phones, texting and iPods we are all wired in; it’s hard to turn the noise off to engage in simple conversations that were once the norm.

The Canadian work environment needs to foster a culture that allows employees to take control of their time and ultimately their stress. Some examples that have generated some great success in terms of incorporating balance and time in the lives of employees would include:

Respecting the lunch hour – allowing people to breathe away from their desk.
Managing your meetings – They are an epidemic in most organizations. Leaders need to ensure they have value and purpose.
Flexible scheduling options.
Health Risk Assessments can play a key role in understanding all of the risk factors at play.
Manage your e-mails and your Blackberries – no electronic conversations after hours.
Ensure technology doesn’t compromise relationships.
Set reasonable expectations for response to inquiries – in the age of electronic device 24-hour delay in response to e-mails in order to eliminate the expectation of immediate reply.

Employers should take a moment to think of small changes that may have a huge impact on the quality of their work environment in changing the way people work to address workplace stress.

1 The sanofi-aventis Healthcare Survey 2008, page 4.
2 Canada Safety Council, www.safety-coucil.org/info/OSH/mentalhealth.html