Risk & Business Magazine Cal LeGrow Spring 2016 | Page 6

Bulletproofing your Employees
3 Steps for Maintaining the Health of Your Employees

BY: MIKE WAHL, CO-FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, DEFINITIONS HEALTH AND WELLNESS

“Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to
improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it.
If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you
can’t improve it.” - H. James Harrington

T

hese words have resonated within
organizations and as a result
we measure the wellbeing of our
companies. Whether it is sales, revenue,
or productivity - most organizations are
aware of the performance indicators
that impact their business. Measuring
allows us to identify best practices
and risks before they manifest into
larger issues. Unfortunately, there is a
negative trend that has been ongoing
in our organizations for over 20 years
that is impacting our workers and the
bottom line of our organizations.
Since the mid 1980’s obesity rates have
steadily increased globally and are
projected to double by the year 2020.
Obesity itself is not necessarily the issue
but rather its associated co-morbidities
that should cause concern. Obesity
related health conditions are the most
common cause for time away from
work. These health conditions include
cardiovascular
disease,
diabetes,
depression, cancer, and injury among
others. With upwards of 80% of our
workers overweight and over 30%
classified as obese, these risks are real.
The poor health of your workforce
adds significantly to the cost of doing
business and, more importantly,
impacts the quality of life for our coworkers. The question remains, why
have we chosen to ignore this issue if
we know it exists?
The answer to that question isn’t
that simple. Health is a multifaceted
problem that has societal, socioeconomic, educational, genetic and

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geographic factors. For organizations
that are determined to address health,
the path forward is not always easy to
navigate. With an array of different
diets, exercise routines, supplements,
and quick fixes on the market - the
solution is complex. As a result,
organizations have trouble deciphering
the health riddle.
Even with the right approach, changing
the mindset of your team is not always
an easy task. However, there are a
series of steps you can follow to build
a culture of health in your organization
and reverse this trend.
The first stage of changing your
organization’s health is unconscious
incompetence. In this stage, the
individual does not understand or
know how to do something and does
not necessarily recognize the deficit.
They may deny the usefulness of the
healthy habit or the education. The
individual must recognize their own
incompetence, and the value of the
new habit before moving on to the next
stage. The length of time an individual
spends in this stage depends on the
strength of the stimulus to learn.
Hebert Spencer said, “The great aim of
education is not knowledge but action”.
For this reason, wellness should revolve
around the provision of tools that
individuals can apply to improve their
health.
In order to create awareness around
your health status you must measure.

Fortunately, when it comes to health we
can metric a variety of variables. These
variables can include anthropometrics
like height, weight, obesity status,
metabolic health (cholesterol and
blood pressure), and physical fitness
(flexibility and strength). By creating
awareness around where an individual
stands, you are creating relevance
around specific areas of education that,
without prior knowledge of health
status, may have seemed irrelevant to
the individual. When that information
is available, people become actively
aware of what is most applicable and
impactful. This shift in thinking
improves participation and empowers
the worker.
The second stage of changing health
is conscious incompetence. Though
the individual does not understand or
know how to do something, he or she
does recognize the deficit, as well as
the value of a new health habit. The
worker will now be aware when making
mistakes, which can be integral to the
learning process.
This step is where the desire to
change occurs. When individuals
are aware of their health status they
become motivated to improve. At this
critical stage, employers should begin
providing solutions and healthy habits
for workers. Individualized planning
around nutrition, exercise, rest and
recovery combined with a clear goal
should be the focus of making wellness
relevant and effective. Complimentary
initiatives around education including