A New Paradigm for Approaching Mental Health in the Workplace
If you have a stake in your employees’ health (and most HR, benefits, and people managers do), you’ve probably already realized that poor mental health among your employees is a massive and complex problem. And the larger your company, the more people who are likely affected by it (we’ll look at some numbers a bit later). Poor mental health clearly comes at a tremendous cost to the employee who is suffering, but also to your company as well. Yet because…
How Blue Apron Approaches Employee Wellbeing
How does a 5,000-person company with employees distributed in offices and warehouses around the country approach employee wellbeing? LifeDojo recently caught up with Hannah Bertiger, Benefits & Wellness Coordinator at Blue Apron to find out! Read on to learn about Blue Apron’s current programs, goals, and nutrition tips! LifeDojo: Tell us about your role as Benefits & Wellness Coordinator at Blue Apron. What are some of your main responsibilities and tasks? Hannah Bertiger: My team focuses on a multi-faceted benefits program and supporting the…
Dispelling the Myths of Workplace Wellness Programs
You’ve probably observed a disconnect between the ideal version of workplace “wellness” and the all-too-common reality. In the ideal version, you have an office full of motivated, healthy employees who participate in your programs and achieve lasting results. But if you’re like a lot of other benefits and HR leaders, your reality looks a little more like this: minimal enrollment, low participation, and few lasting results. Why is there such a big discrepancy here? There are a number of myths…
We’ve Got the Cure for These 4 Common Wellbeing Program Ailments
With most ailments like the common cold, you usually know exactly what to do. When you have a sore throat, you gargle with salt water. If you have a cold, nothing works better than Mom’s chicken soup. But what if you’re struggling with something that’s a little more complex? We understand the difficulties of launching a successful employee wellbeing program. You’re up against time restrictions, budget restrictions, and the need to prove the value and return on your investment. It’s…
How to Personalize Your Employee Wellbeing Program
Here’s a common scenario: Your company decides to offer a wellness challenge, and you get a big group committed to running a 5k or walking 10,000 steps a day for a month. People seem excited and motivated at the beginning of the program. But by the end, or a few weeks after? That excitement has vanished. Why does this approach to employee wellbeing tend to fade out? First off, once the ideal conditions and group encouragement are gone, most people…
Habit Change & Workplace Wellbeing: Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, we explored some of the factors that go into the mechanics of habit change and why it’s so hard to adjust our behavior, even if we have a strong desire to make a change. If you missed it or want a quick refresher, you can see that post here. In this post, we’re going to look at how the science of behavior change can impact your employee wellbeing programs, and what that means for you as you…
Habit Change & Workplace Wellbeing: Part 1
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” - Aristotle Your alarm rings at 6am, you hit the snooze button—five more minutes of sleep. The second alarm goes off, and, grunting, you sit up. You reach over to shut off the alarm on your phone, and open up Facebook and start scrolling. If you’re feeling extra groggy this morning you might venture over to Instagram and Snapchat, too. Thirty minutes later, you’ve somehow managed to…
Finding the Focus for Your Employee Wellbeing Program
Wellbeing can be a tricky concept to define. That’s why we spent a blog post diving into what we mean by this term and why we think it’s important to distinguish between wellness and wellbeing. One of the reasons why we prefer “wellbeing” is that it’s more broad and holistic. It doesn’t just include how you’re feeling physically, but your mental and emotional states as well. If you’re on board with all this, you may still be wondering what this means for…
Employee Wellness vs. Wellbeing: What’s the Difference?
What’s in a name? Does it really matter whether you refer to your program as an employee wellness or an employee wellbeing initiative? These two concepts certainly have some overlap, but it’s become increasingly common to differentiate between the two. In fact, BenefitsPRO reported a 90% increase in clients asking for “wellbeing” programs rather than programs focused solely on physical health. And in a very Project Runway-esque moment, the ADP blog went so far as to say that “wellness programs are out,…
Why Intrinsic Motivation Matters for Employee Wellbeing Programs
Picture this: You’re walking through a beautiful, livable space filled with natural light and plants. You see people in small groups talking enthusiastically, some are seated at couches and in small booths, others are heading off to a yoga session on the roof, while others are snacking on fresh organic fruit. Just to be clear: I’m not describing the hottest new health club, but what’s becoming more and more common in the workplace. Employers are putting an increasing emphasis on…
