feature
wearables and mobile apps for managing
their health has doubled in the past two
years.
Some companies have been quick to see
the potential advantages of harnessing the
power of this technology to engage employ-ees
in taking better care of their health. It’s
not just about weight loss and exercise; the
new frontiers of employee wellbeing em-brace
mental and even financial health as
well. But why should employers care?
“The simplest reason is that it’s gener-ally
been proven that employees who are
doing the right things in terms of ex-ercise
and diet and managing their care
proactively will be absent less, more effi-cient
and productive at work, more engaged
and more likely to stay when the organiza-tion
is supporting them in their goals,” said
HR technology consultant Steve Boese,
president of H3HR Advisors. “When
companies are invested in the health and
wellness of people, a lot of good things ac-crue
to the organization, quantitatively, in
terms of absenteeism and health care costs,
“THE FIRST THING IS TO
EVALUATE WHERE AN
ORGANIZATION IS IN
THEIR JOURNEY AROUND
WORKPLACE WELLNESS –
ARE THEY NEW TO THIS, OR
HAVE THEY BEEN DOING
PROGRAMMING FOR YEARS?”
– MIRA JELIC, NOVUS HEALTH
and qualitatively, in terms of goodwill and
engagement.”
That investment and care can also change
the dynamic of an organization.
“It creates lots of connections between
staff. It starts to create a culture around car-ing
and sharing,” said Mira Jelic, co-founder
and vice president of Novus Health.
Wireless technology has already enabled
many employers, large and small, to cre-ate
company portals related to health and
wellness that employees can access on their
smartphones and tablets to connect to re-ferral
information, EAPs, benefits and so
on. Now, they can go one step further.
Since wearable fitness devices have seen
such widespread adoption, says Boese,
companies are asking how they can fit into
the workplace.
“Is there a more holistic programmat-ic
way to adopt this?” he said. “It would be
a good idea to support and integrate what
people are doing in their private life. A
few companies have emerged in the mar-ket
to integrate these kinds of personal
devices and activity trackers into a corpo-rate
program.”
By providing employees with tracking
devices, subsidizing them or simply work-ing
with whatever employees have already
acquired for themselves, companies can
set up challenges and competitions, offer
incentives for participation and, most im-portant,
measure successes.
“You can measure participation, trends
in activity, fitness challenges, eating right
challenges; with these wearable devic-es,
these things are incredibly easy to
track,” said Boese. These statistics can
be matched against goals such as health
care claims data, claims against certain
types of disease or medical procedures
and long-term tendencies in chronic re-peat
claims.
IMPLEMENTING A PROGRAM
Companies looking to implement a pro-gram
involving new health and wellness
technology should be mindful of where to
begin the process.
GokGak/Shutterstock.com
26 ❚ JULY/AUGUST 2016 ❚ HR PROFESSIONAL
