Congratulations – you’re going on vacation! Maybe you’re getting ready to take advantage of your Vacation Wellness benefit from work, or you saved long enough to afford a full-price vacation. Maybe you spent the time to plan the details yourself, or had your Vacation Wellness program do the planning work for you. Regardless of how you planned your vacation or how much you paid for it, you want to get the maximum benefit out of your time and money. That means you want to have as much fun as possible, but also experience the full health and relaxation benefits vacationing offers. Believe it or not, a group of doctors at the Medical University of Vienna studied the factors that influence the degree of health benefit that vacationers experience, and arrived at a set of guidelines to help you get the greatest wellness benefit from your time away from the grind. The report is astoundingly boring to read, but we’ll save you the trouble: Make this kind of scene part of your wellness scene! Go someplace warm and sunny! Find a warm beach somewhere with your name on it, and don’t be afraid to grab a few rays. While excessive sun exposure obviously isn’t the point, moderate sunlight has powerful mood, attitude, outlook, and health enhancing effects. And warmer temperatures – particularly for denizens of cold winter climates – enhance the positive results. Schedule time to do nothing. Don’t pack your vacation full of activities, events, side trips, and parties to the exclusion of a good amount of unscheduled free time. Not having to be anywhere at any specific time allows your mind to unwind, and allows you to gain mental distance from the obligations of daily life. Gaining perspective reduces stress, lowers depression risk, enhances coping mechanisms, and boosts the health benefits of your vacation. Exercise. At home, all of the incredibly powerful exercise-induced positive brain and body chemistry effects are counterbalanced by the stress hormones that daily life induces. Those stress hormones are drastically reduced while you’re on vacation (unless you’re “vacationing” at the in-laws,’ but that’s a topic for another time). The whole is greater than the sum of the parts – exercising on vacation multiplies the benefits of both exercise and vacationing. Sleep. If you like to party like a rock star, plan to do that early on during your vacation so you have enough time to return rested and recuperated. Scientists have discovered that improperly-folded protein chains, which degrade the ability of every cell in the body to function properly, are purged from your cells only during sleep. Lack of rest has a very real physical consequence, but you can do your body a great deal of good by allowing time for plenty of shuteye while you’re on vacation. You should plan to sleep until you get tired of sleeping. Meet new friends. Be social. Reconnect with important people in your life. Humans are social animals, and all sorts of positive mental processes happen as we get to know and like new people. So, enjoy your vacation! Take lots of pictures, have tons of fun, and be sure to get the most wellness bang for your relaxation ... Read More

Wellness. Why do eyes glaze over and people suddenly have to be somewhere else when you bring up the topic? Because it isn’t fun! Nobody wants to hear exhortations to get more exercise and eat healthier. Folks know it already. And there’s only one reason they’re not living a healthier lifestyle right now: they’re not ready to commit. As someone who has made difficult, even painful lifestyle adjustments for the sake of health and wellness, I’m here to testify that positive lifestyle change only occurs when people decide they’re ready for a positive lifestyle change. While the wellness message from management might be just the nudge a few people are looking for, it likely won’t be the voice of inspiration for most of your staff. Personal sacrifice accompanies personal commitment, and not much else substitutes effectively when it comes to making positive lifestyle and health changes. But that doesn’t mean your wellness program is doomed to fail. An easy and inexpensive way to ramp up your effectiveness is to make wellness more fun. Here are four quick tips to help your employees get more active—and become healthier, more productive, better rested, and more excited about working for you. They’re really not that expensive, and they’re each designed to bring back the fun factor: Have an active sports league for each season of the year. While sports injuries do occur on occasion, their extent, duration, and cost are nowhere near those resulting from diseases associated with stress. And you’ll be surprised who comes out of the woodwork for softball season! Introduce functional fitness. The idea positions fitness as a sport, and employees compete with themselves for better performance on a daily basis. There’s a ton of high-quality, empirically based fitness information available at www.CrossFit.com. It’s amazing what a little bit of competition will do to motivate higher levels of performance, and the feeling of accomplishment when you’ve set a new personal record is fantastic intrinsic incentive. Make sure employees take all of their time off. Stress is widely recognized as a cause of micro-inflammation, which leads to a host of serious and costly maladies. And just having your folks take all of their vacation time is among the simplest—and cheapest—methods to reduce stress-induced employment costs, absenteeism, health care costs, and turnover. Help staff make the most of their time off with a Vacation Wellness™ membership benefit. Give them access to premium fun-in-the-sun destinations at deeply discounted prices, and you won’t have to twist anyone’s arm to get them started on some serious productivity-enhancing rest and relaxation. Wellness doesn’t need to be all work and no play. If you make a commitment to adding some enjoyment to your wellness program, you might be surprised at who becomes a regular at your wellness ... Read More

So says William Shakespeare. We agree. This is Part 4 in our four-part health and nutrition series, and a continuation of Part 3’s discussion on the drug-like influence food exerts over our hormone levels. If all of this has so far sounded cranky, contrarian and iconoclastic, rest assured it is apolitical and with a single unifying agenda: to communicate the best of what we’ve encountered in a concerted years-long discovery of what works best in the fitness and health arena. Shakespeare also says, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” Bear with us through a little madness. We left off last time lamenting the gross insulin imbalance caused by the high-carbohydrate (particularly processed carbohydrates) diet espoused by the well-known food pyramid. This is a much bigger deal than it may sound at first. Insulin problems are famously tied to diabetes, but the reality is that hyperinsulinism likely underlies a much broader family of inflammation-derived diseases than most realize. Insulin is good for the body. But Mae West wasn’t completely right: too much of a good thing isn’t always good. And our collective insulin addiction adds billions of dollars in excess healthcare expenses and productivity losses to businesses across the country. We’re killing ourselves, and our businesses, one bite at a time. On the other end of the macro-hormonal seesaw sits glucagon. Whereas insulin promotes fat storage, blood sugar uptake, and inflammation, glucagon promotes fat breakdown and inflammation reduction. The important question is this: precisely what do we balance, and in what proportions, in order to restore the body’s optimum balance between insulin and glucagon levels? The answer requires us to go back a few thousand years. Twelve thousand, to be a little more precise. In those days, in addition to having to walk uphill both directions, people hadn’t yet figured out how to farm. Survival depended on hunting, gathering, and foraging, which means that the genetically-driven hormonal impact of food evolved entirely without the influence of high-density carbohydrates like those found in the processed (milled, floured, crushed, etc) grains we consume by the truckload today. The human genome calibrated the human body’s carbohydrate insulin response to the kinds of carbohydrates that weren’t nearly as dense as the kinds we consume in large quantities now. From our body’s perspective, there is a gargantuan supply of carbohydrates available in a single slice of bread. For an organism genetically optimized to consume foods much lower in carbohydrate energy supply per unit volume, this glut of excess carbohydrates proves to be a big problem. We produce insulin like it’s going out of style. What kinds of carbohydrates did our non-farming ancestors consume? Fruits and vegetables. Unprocessed plant matter. Embrace your inner Neanderthal when it comes to your food choices. Neanderthal food was high in nutrients and relatively low in energy content. Because of the incredibly slow pace of genetic change, the human genome hasn’t caught up to our agricultural advances, which happened a nanosecond ago in evolutionary time. Hence, a little carbohydrate goes a long way in our bodies, and the insulin response to high-density processed carbohydrates such as breads, cereals, tortillas, pancakes, muffins, cookies, brownies, crackers, and the like, is exceptionally high. Our bodies freak out on the insulin high that results from consuming too many starchy carbs, and results on a cellular level are problematic – and expensive for businesses. Avoid starchy carbohydrates. Eat as many vegetables as you can stand. Don’t be afraid of fat – it’s a tremendous energy source, and it is hormonally neutral. And be sure to consume protein – it is the trigger that causes our bodies to produce glucagon, essential to hormonal balance. As Greg Glassman (www.crossfit.com) puts it, “eat meat and vegetables, seeds and nuts, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar.” That’s the hard part, friends. Breaking the bread-induced cycle of hyperinsulinism can be metabolically uncomfortable, but the discomfort soon passes. Life is much more enjoyable without the constant blood sugar highs and inevitable mood crashes that a hyperinsulin cycle produces. But as the post’s title implies, and as our discussion has pointed to, balancing the hormone levels requires eating the right insulin- and glucagon-promoting foods in the right proportions. There are complicated methods to calculate the most appropriate food proportions, but they require a slide rule and a part-time actuary to help you follow them correctly. Here are two exceedingly simple techniques to help ensure you consume the right amounts of carbohydrates and proteins. Make a fist. Place a fist-sized amount of lean protein on your plate. Chicken, fish, most pork cuts, and lean red meat cuts are fine. Now, place two fists worth of vegetables on your plate. Add two tablespoons of salad dressing (really, that’s a lot more than it sounds like), and you’re in business. You have roughly the right amount of protein and carbs, and the salad dressing provides a bit of fat. A second option is to divide a medium-sized plate (not a dinner plate) into thirds. Fill one third of the plate with lean protein. Fill the remaining two thirds with veggies of your choice, and add a couple of tablespoons of salad dressing for fat and flavor. Eat more often – four to six times per day, in small portions. Consuming large meals at once is another terrific way to spike insulin levels in your bloodstream, so a better approach is to eat smaller meals more frequently throughout the day. Many favor option 1 above, because your fist size is also a great portion size estimator. Is it difficult to eat this way? At first, absolutely. But healthy carbohydrates – fruits and vegetables – come in virtually endless varieties, and taste amazingly good all by themselves after you disabuse yourself of the notion that every breakfast must include a sugar coated double chocolate gut-buster. And if you just can’t live without bread? Yeah, about that: one half slice of bread equals one fist’s volume of vegetables in terms of caloric load. Put the donut down, Dewey. Is all of this bad news for employers looking to help their staff make healthier choices? Yes and no. At least now you know what it means to really eat a “balanced diet,” difficult and daunting as it may sound at first (it really isn’t after you get used to it). And there is power in the truth. Not sugarcoating (no pun intended) the degree of dietary dedication required to affect real health change gives your employees a realistic starting point to set attainable goals. Dietary change is hard, and the sad truth is that most people would rather stay overweight and unhealthy than make the necessary changes, one choice at a time. That’s why employee wellness offerings aimed at physical health indicators have such low employee participation. Obesity programs attract a 5% adherence rate, on average. If physical health indicators are the cornerstone of your wellness program, at least now you know what you’re up against – and why we’re excited about Vacation Wellness‘ high participation rate. If nothing else, the hard truths of health and fitness demonstrate the need for a holistic wellness approach. Your wellness suite should offer pockets of value for participants across a broad spectrum of fitness interests and abilities, but should also contain engaging measures with broad appeal that require less spartan dedication. [contact-form 2 “Contact form ... Read More

This is the third in a four-part series on the physical fitness aspect of employee wellness. Part 1 discussed the ways you can support the willpower investment your employees make in themselves; Part 2 discussed the highest-return fitness program methodologies I’ve encountered. We haven’t exactly minced words in the first two parts, but Part 3 is where it gets controversial. We’re going to talk about what you put in your mouth, and the impact it has on the baggage you carry on your rump and the gunk that flows through your veins. I’m not a research physician. That means I lack the educational background to do the clinical research myself. But it also means I’m not beholden to a research grant fund source with an agenda, and I am completely free to search out the dissenting voices in the wilderness – which, throughout human history, have often turned out to be far more right than the masses. These aren’t my conclusions. But I think they’re spot on. Google Dr. Barry Sears, a cancer drug delivery researcher, as a starting point to do your own digging. It’s useful to explore conventional nutritional wisdom. The brightest minds in the medical research field accepted generous grants from the grain lobby to study the optimum diet proportions. Not surprisingly in a nation with the capacity to grow enough corn and wheat to feed approximately the entire world, give or take a continent or two, the lobby-funded research extolled the virtues of a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. The trouble with the vast majority of the research conclusions that advocated this dietary approach is that almost none of them were empirical. Because of the political and economic motivations behind the process, contradictory study conclusions were buried, and the offending scientists marginalized. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but only after you look at who funded the vast majority of nutritional research in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s. Over the years, we noticed that our low-fat, high-carbohydrate consumers became overweight and obese in epidemic numbers. We sampled their blood, and noted that obese people often have elevated blood cholesterol. Voila – clearly, these people were eating too high a percentage of fat in their diet, which was making them fat, right? Hence the dire warnings exhorting us to reduce the fat content in our diets. It sounds so beautifully symmetrical and simple – eating fat makes you fat. Doesn’t it? Not so fast. The Food Pyramid - How to Get Fat and Die Young This is where you have to take a leap of faith away from conventional wisdom. Don’t be afraid. Conventional wisdom is always wrong. Always. The world is not flat. Matter is not solid. Coffee doesn’t stunt your growth. The sun does not revolve around the earth. The sun is also not stationary in space. Space is not a black blanket with holes punched in it. Magnetism and electricity are not witchcraft. Matter and energy are one. The biceps curl machine doesn’t get you in shape. And a high-carbohydrate diet does not make you healthy. In fact, it turns out that the dietary proportions espoused by the American Dietetic Association are a perfect recipe for obesity, heart disease, and premature morbidity. How do we know? Look around. One of the fundamental principals of the universe is that you always get what you pay for. Our high-carbohydrate, highly-processed grain-based diet has been killing us for years. How can I say that, when the blood tests for unhealthy people with coronary disease reveal high cholesterol levels? Because blood cholesterol is a symptom, not a cause. “Wait a minute. It isn’t about what you eat, but about how much. Obese people just eat too much.” Also wrong. What your body does with the food you eat is a function of the hormonal response that food invokes, as well as the hormonal response your lifestyle elicits. It doesn’t matter how many lipid (fat) molecules are floating around in your bloodstream. Those individual fat bundles pass easily through the cell walls of your fat cells. They do not accumulate inside your fat cells, except in the presence of insulin. You can have all the food fat in your bloodstream you want. Without insulin, your body will not bind those fat molecules together to form triglycerides, which are too large to pass through the walls of your fat cells. Without insulin in your bloodstream, you don’t store fat. Without glucagon, the yang to insulin’s ying, triglycerides don’t break apart into their constituent lipids, passing easily OUT of fat cells and into the blood stream to be consumed as energy. Among other vital functions, insulin tells the body to store fat because there’s plenty of blood sugar available for energy. Among other vital functions, glucagon tells the body to release fat, and use it for energy, because there’s less blood sugar available for energy. Insulin says “store fat.” Glucagon says “release fat.” Insulin also causes inflammation at microscopic and macroscopic scales in the body. Unchecked, inflammation causes cellular damage. Blood cholesterol is deployed to repair that cellular damage. Therefore, high blood cholesterol levels indicate high levels of systemic inflammation at the cellular level – symptomatic of chronic excess insulin. That’s absolutely critical to understand. Blood cholesterol does not cause disease, but is symptomatic of it. What balances insulin’s pro-inflammatory chemical message? You guessed it. Glucagon. It is important to realize that both processes are vital to survival. Without insulin, we die. Without glucagon, we die. But here is the rub: we must make lifestyle choices that promote the appropriate balance of those hormonal responses. Otherwise, we become obese and suffer coronary disease and other inflammation-caused diseases (the list is surprisingly long and all-encompassing, including many forms of cancer). I know – Get to the point, geek. We’re almost there. Here’s the million dollar question: how do we balance insulin and glucagon levels appropriately? That question leads us to a more fundamental question: what influences our endocrine system to produce insulin or glucagon? This is where the food pyramid’s dirty little secret becomes scandalously exposed. Consuming carbohydrates causes our bodies to produce insulin. Consuming protein causes our bodies to produce glucagon. Consuming too many carbohydrates in proportion to protein causes our bodies to produce excess insulin. Excess insulin causes systemic maladies on an epidemic scale. In our misguided effort to avoid fats, we have avoided the foods that have both fat and protein. At the same time, we have powered down breads and sugars like it was our job. After all, the experts said it’s good for us, right? And we have become epidemically overweight and diseased. What happened? Simple. Our diet failed to balance our hormones. We became insulin addicts. How do we fix it? How do we support a nutritional stance that supports our employees’ long-term physical health and fitness? I’ll tell you in Part ... Read More

You can change a habit in 21 days. But it takes thousands of years to change the genome. As it turns out, that basic Biology 101 factoid has an enormous impact on the efficacy of your wellness program. Not all fitness methods are created equal. Some align with the body’s natural processes, taking advantage of the hormonal, chemical, physical and mental interplay that defines the parameters of existence. Their effects compound across all the body’s processes, to include the whether, when, and how the body binds glycerides together to form triglycerides within fat cells, and whether proteins combine to repair and strengthen muscles or are consumed for energy. And then, there’s the Nautilus machine. Let me explain. The human body was created to endurance hunt, then fell prey through short high-energy bursts of physical activity. Our ancestors could run a gazelle to exhaustion by sheer persistence, and could then win the physical scuffle to turn fauna to food at the end of the chase. All of those activities are what today’s exercise gurus would term “functional fitness” – whole-body involvement at various levels of intensity in a wide variety of time domains. Those activities produce neuromuscular responses that influence the macro- and micro-hormones that govern all biological processes in the body (google Barry Sears and Greg Glassman for background here). The greater the systemic involvement in movement, and the greater the intensity of that movement, the greater the beneficial adaptation that results. Most importantly, that adaption occurs systemically, not in isolated parts of the body. The bloodstream carries the macro-hormones that govern how the body handles food (whether it stores fat or burns it, and whether it builds muscle or tears it down). What I’m saying is that the best way to a six-pack isn’t doing crunches. It’s whole-body high-intensity functional movement. Run. Squat. Jump. Lunge. Do pullups and pushups. Pick up heavy things (safely, of course). Your exercise regime should strive for the maximum muscle involvement at every turn. Unless you’re a bodybuilder taking steroids, isolation movements are ineffective in the absence of whole-body movements that produce genetically-programmed hormonal and chemical responses with inherently beneficial whole-body effects. Our ancestors didn’t survive by doing isolation movements. It makes sense that the body doesn’t reward them today, either. This set of biological certainties is somewhat controversial, largely because of the economic size of the industries designed around various silver bullets – machines, powders, supplements, etc. Put enough marketing power behind it, and you can promulgate any collection of misunderstandings you like (seriously intelligent people used to think the earth was flat). But just because someone discovers a new way to isolate the biceps in an exercise movement doesn’t mean it’s going to have a positive impact on your fitness level. What’s the upshot of all of this? If you’re going to spend time and money on a wellness and fitness program, it might as well be one that works. In one of life’s beautiful ironies, the most effective fitness programs I’ve ever encountered are incredibly inexpensive and require very little equipment, overhead, or expense. The best place to start is at www.crossfit.com. Then check out www.mtnathlete.com. The first program is imminently scalable for all levels. The second is not for the faint of heart. Make no mistake, though. These programs are the most difficult I’ve ever taken part in. That’s why they work as well as they do. Does their degree of required effort mean that many employees will not do them? Absolutely. But their incredible viral growth over the past ten years proves that when you tell people up front that they’re going to work harder than they’ve ever worked, and that maximum effort is the surest, shortest, and most rewarding path to success, you’ll be surprised who joins. If you’ve been sugarcoating wellness and fitness, it’s probably time for a dose of brutal honesty. Our bodies were designed to respond to the demands we place on them. If our existence is characterized by little movement or exertion, our bodies will reflect that fact. Results demand effort, and effort is the shortcut. “But what about the employee who can barely get to and from the car?” The most important takeaway is this: intensity is relative. When a deconditioned person exercises at what is a high level of intensity for their current level of physical fitness, their body responds just as favorably as if they were putting in a world-record performance. The formula works across the entire spectrum of fitness levels. It’s all about personal gains, and improving your own personal bests. The glacial pace of genome adaptation can work for you or against you. If you align your fitness program with the way the body is genetically programmed to respond – whole-body involvement at as high intensity as possible – good things happen in your wellness ... Read More

…in just seven grueling months. That’s right. You too can lose a pound and a half of fat every week for 28 long, difficult, arduous weeks. Interested in learning the secret formula? I used a recipe so simple that anyone, from any walk of life, with even the poorest genetic predisposition, can achieve exactly the same results. Getting in shape didn’t require a degree in medicine, biology, chemistry, exercise physiology, nutrition, biomechanics, or even statistics (Everything requires statistics these days. Except, apparently, losing 42 pounds and 71 cholesterol points in 7 months.). It wasn’t complex or confusing. It required no math. I didn’t need books, videos, pills, potions, shakes, juices, smoothies, chewing gum, spandex, or bad club music. I didn’t need a dietician, clinician, or physician. I didn’t count calories. Nothing wrong with those things. You just don’t need them. Ready for the formula? (you probably know where this is going..) . I worked my keester off. It really wasn’t that hard to do. I just worked exceptionally hard. Consistently. I didn’t accept excuses from myself. I held myself accountable for my results. And when I reflect on it, the same theme characterizes every other worthwhile accomplishment I’ve ever attained. My guess is I’m not alone in this regard. There really isn’t any mystery to success in life, business, or wellness. It all has the same formula. Napoleon Hill: Nature cannot be tricked or cheated. She will give up to you the object of your struggles only after you have paid her price. Victor Hugo: People do not lack strength; they lack will. John St. Augustine: People simply need to trade their wishbone for a backbone. Theodore Roosevelt: Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. I actually came to love the painful, difficult, uncomfortable, humbling, tiring process of getting in shape. The incremental changes were fun to observe, but the actual process of doing something difficult, mastering myself, and learning to dwell calmly with burning muscles and screaming lungs – as warped as it may sound, that was the real reward. So why is all of this in a wellness and productivity blog for business owners and human resources professionals? Six takeaways: Nothing you say or do is likely to motivate your employees to make such a significant change. When it happens, it will come from within them. For those who do ultimately make that choice, an important purpose of your physical wellness program is to offer an available vehicle for them to use when they’re ready. But don’t sugarcoat the level of effort necessary to make a significant change. Deep down, we all know that there are no shortcuts, and your employees will respect an honest approach. Besides, the work becomes its own reward. Your employees don’t need to make such a radical personal lifestyle change in order to have a significant positive impact on your healthcare expenditures. A little bit of exercise with a little bit of consistency can go a very long way over time. Boredom kills an exercise program. Constantly varying my workouts kept me interested enough to continue. Your wellness offering needs to provide a change of scenery and something to look forward to. Don’t chase lagging indicators. My cholesterol fell because I got in shape. I didn’t get in shape by lowering my cholesterol. Same thing for blood pressure, resting heart rate, and base metabolic rate. I demanded more of my body, and it responded the way it was designed to respond. Rarely is pharmaceutical intervention for any of the famous health risk indicators appropriate. Blood cholesterol levels rise in response to the body’s inflammatory healing mechanism, not because you consumed fat. High blood cholesterol, over time, leads to high blood pressure. But the quickest way to treat the symptoms is to remedy the cause: poor basic musculoskeletal and cardiovascular fitness. You can’t count on a company-wide commitment to fitness at a high level, but you don’t necessarily need to. Not all wellness initiatives require sweat for success. Reducing stress yields a decrease in stress hormones, and a corresponding decrease in the pro-inflammatory eicosanoids responsible for the cellular responses associated with increased risk of diseases of all types. The chemical component of emotion brings unexpectedly complex physiological responses to stressors. Helping your staff relax has powerful second- and third-order health effects – which also adds profit and productivity to your business. Voila. All that’s left is the doing. As Napoleon Hill said, “success requires no explanations.” And as Guy Kawasaki says, “you’ve just gotta grind it out.” Up next: Going Primal – Look Backwards for the Future of ... Read More

The problem is well-defined: the cost of American healthcare, already 52% more expensive than the next highest nation on earth, is rising at double-digit rates. While politicians and lobbyists debate policy and implementation, businesses see an interim solution in the wellness arena. Healthier employees file fewer health care claims. It sounds simple enough. Unfortunately, businesses are having a tough time connecting the dots. Owen Sullivan, CEO of Right Management, reports that “wellness has limited appeal as a strategic investment and organizations fail to successfully connect wellness within the context of organizational strategy.” There is a clear disconnect between business’ desire for healthier employees and the methodology they employ to realize that goal. Traditional measures include gym memberships, smoking cessation classes, office ergonomics, diet education, and after-work club activities. An emerging frontier is the Vacation Wellness™ benefit genre, encouraging employees to utilize all of their vacation time by offering access to deep travel discounts. All are valuable in isolation, but work best in concert. At the end of the day, though, reducing per-employee healthcare cost depends ultimately on the degree of leadership buy-in, support, and consistency in wellness program application. Without the appropriate culture shift at the top, businesses will struggle to achieve noticeable ... Read More

Recent healthcare legislation changes have given business owners reason to fear rising employee healthcare expenses. The news wasn’t good before the law passed, and it certainly hasn’t improved since. We ran across a recent report in which over 100 insurers covering 78 million people predict an average medical plan cost increase of over 10 percent in 2010. Some lowlights: Federal mental health parity requirements and recent COBRA enrollment increases add to the impact of healthcare reform to shape the prediction, according to Buck principal Harvey Sobel. Projected increases in preferred provider organization (PPO), point-of-service (POS), health maintenance organization (HMO), and high-deductible consumer-driven (HDCD) plans range between 10.3% and 11.1%. This rate of increase has held virtually unchanged over the past three studies. You’re undoubtedly deep into the wellness arena already in an attempt to mitigate healthcare costs for your business (if not, it’s probably time to consider it seriously). Many programs are easy to implement and sound good on paper, but garner little employee participation (Sue Schick reports that smoking cessation, for example, has a 4% adherence rate). If you’ll permit a little bragging, we’re happy to report that our Vacation Wellness™ program has an 89% four-year retention rate for those who have taken at least one destination vacation through our travel partners. It’s nice to implement an employee wellness benefit that doesn’t require constant harping to gain worker involvement. We’ve put together a white paper to help business owners make sense of the healthcare cost and employee wellness program arena. While the news isn’t terrific (or even very good), an effective wellness plan offers a ray of hope for businesses to control employment expenses in an out-of-control healthcare cost environment. Whether you choose beaches, broccoli, or both for your employee wellness program, be sure you’re doing something to stay ahead of the looming train wreck. It could get ... Read More

Stress in the workplace has long been linked with adverse health consequences, and one could spend a lifetime or two reading studies that explore stress’ harmful consequences. But that doesn’t mean that businesses have done much about it. Employers have added enough work hours over the past 25 years to fill a 13th work month, and most employees are electronically connected to work while they’re at home as well. It’s getting harder and harder to truly walk away from work to relax and unwind, and employees are suffering from the effects of stress as a consequence. A Cure for Burnout Careerbuilder.com recently released the results of a survey revealing that 77% of employees feel burned out on their jobs. An unrealistic workload, tight deadlines, last-minute projects, and stressful interpersonal relationships at work contributed to stress levels. We’ve done a ton of research on the subject (which we’ve put together for you in a white paper), and it turns out that unmanaged stress in the workplace leads directly to significant business losses. I don’t think anyone would contend that a burned-out employee is likely to be performing at optimum levels, and it’s encouraging that many employers are at least becoming sufficiently aware of the problem to begin considering meaningful action. But it might be time to take the next step. Consider adding a Vacation Wellness™ program to your employee wellness and benefit suite. Destination vacations are a great way for staff to reduce stress, and your business will benefit from a rejuvenated workforce. Some stress is necessary for peak performance, but most workplaces are already past the point of diminishing returns. Is yours among ... Read More

Quite a lot, as it turns out. A few kind folks have done all of the grueling number crunching, and there’s only one conclusion to draw: if you don’t yet have a wellness program in place for your business or department, you’re probably burning cash by the bushel. To wit: a 38 month case study of 23,000 participants in Citibank, N.A.’s health management program showed that within a 2 year period, Citibank realized a ROI between $4.56 and $4.73 per dollar invested in their various wellness initiatives. One study of 72 wellness program articles concluded that health promotion programs achieve an average ROI of $3.48 when considering health care costs alone, $5.82 per $1 when examining absenteeism, and $4.30 when both outcomes are considered. That means your balance sheet can start to get well on wellness. And it doesn’t have to cost a fortune. One of the easiest and most cost-effective methods to achieve meaningful heart disease risk reduction comes from a surprising source: vacation time off. Men who vacation are at 32% lower heart attack risk, and women vacationers are 53% less at-risk, according to the Framingham study results. Regular vacationers suffer far less from the adverse effects of workplace stress, produce more, miss less work, and file far fewer and less costly health claims. It’s a no-brainer. And if you want to ensure that your folks actually get away during their time off, make a vacation health enhancement benefit available. A Vacation Wellness™ program encourages your staff to plan trips to killer destinations by taking care of all the details while offering deep discounts on total trip prices. It’s an affordable way to add big impact to your wellness offering. We’ve done a ton of research on the subject of wellness in the workplace, and many of the results are counterintuitive and surprising. We’ve put them all together in a white paper. We hope it helps you make a bit more sense of the workplace wellness maze, and we hope you find the information useful and helpful. Some of the most important things are also the simplest. We’re happy to report that an effective wellness offering falls in that category! Wellness has never been ... Read More