Dear Health Care Executives:

June is National Employee Wellness Month, and we encourage each of you to find ways to get your employees active. Consider organization group activities, healthy lunches, wellness seminars, and corporate walks. This edition of the BWB will provide new ways to inspire and invigorate wellness programs and spark some ideas around your organization’s benefit offerings. Be a source of wellbeing for your organization – be a benefits and wellness leader. 

Sincerely,

Assume for a moment that your employer let you decide when and where you worked – you might arrive early so you could leave in time to care for a child, or work part of the week from home. Or perhaps you want to reduce your hours for a while to care for an aging parent. How would you be perceived if you raised your hand for one of these options? 

Not to be an alarmist, but there is a convergence of events and trends that will make or break the success of many employers’ benefit plans this year. However, a spot-on communications plan will smooth the road ahead, and can even turn risks into opportunities.

As many financial advisors have found out over the years, women think differently than men when it comes to money and retirement. New research from Lincoln Financial Group found that emotions such as hope and fear influence women more than men when it comes to saving for retirement. Women also are more concerned than optimistic about retirement issues such as being able to pay day-to-day expenses, converting savings to retirement income, maintaining their current lifestyle in retirement, and saving enough to retire on. 

When Yahoo’s CEO announced this year that she was banning telecommuting, a firestorm of protest erupted nationwide. The policy change goes against the prevailing view in the American workforce that telecommuting is an option that helps employees achieve a satisfactory work-life balance. And smart companies know that work-life balance opportunities are important to their recruitment and retention strategies. 

Nearly half (47 percent) of all employees reported that the stress from a personal problem negatively impacts their work performance, according to "Stressed at Work: What We Can Learn From EAP Utilization," a study from Bensinger, DuPont and Associates (BDA). The study found that stress most often leads to difficulty concentrating, absenteeism, and poor work quality. The overall data revealed gender differences in the influence of stress on work performance, yet variances by age were minimal.

As more and more employers look at defined contribution health care and other insurance shifts, will employees be ready? Last year, J.D. Power and Associates reported that 47 percent of employers "definitely" or "probably" will switch to a defined contribution health plan in the coming years.

The House's recent vote to pass the Working Families Flexibility Act has rekindled the political debate around comp time versus overtime for private-sector employees. Experts say the bill's progress will likely stall for now, but advise HR leaders to brush up on how the bill could amend the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Despite some common ground, there are also clear divides between employer and employee perceptions around the likelihood and impact of an income-threatening disability, according to findings from the Council for Disability Awareness (CDA).

Does sound HR leadership have a greater impact on employee health, absence, and performance than wellness programs? If the unexpected results of a particular research project are any indication, the answer is an unequivocal "Yes."

Companies are making shifts in the benefits they offer employees, from providing more contraception coverage and more services for new mothers, to being more flexible with paid time off, according to a new report from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). This is partly a response to new laws, including the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as well as an uncertain economy, the report said.

Yahoo! president and CEO Marissa Mayer defended her controversial decision to terminate the company's teleworking policy at the Great Place to Work conference in L.A. recently. Her keynote presentation generated a lot of buzz among attendees and fellow speakers before she even took the stage. Tamar Elkeles, chief learning officer for another technology company, Qualcomm, argued that in today's world, work and life are so blended that work-life balance has turned into work flexibility. 

Now in its fifth year, National Employee Wellness Month is an annual initiative that helps business leaders learn how companies are successfully engaging employees in healthy lifestyles. It showcases how prevention, coupled with supportive social communities like the workplace, can improve employee health and productivity, lower health care costs, and create a healthy workplace culture. 

On May 29, 2013, the Internal Revenue Service and the Departments of Labor and Health & Human Services released final regulations regarding wellness programs integrated with employer-sponsored health plans. The new wellness program standards apply to insured and self-insured programs, grandfathered and non-grandfathered, and are effective for plan years beginning on and after January 1, 2014.

Ochsner Health System is a non-profit multi-specialty health care system comprised of eight hospitals and 38 clinics located throughout Louisiana. Since 2003, Ochsner had been monitoring its rising health care costs and the health of its workforce. The organization had quickly grown to 10,000 employees after several new acquisitions post-Hurricane Katrina. As Ochsner expanded, it became apparent that they needed a more integrated and accessible wellness program to replace the home-grown manual program. Most importantly, with so many entities under their umbrella, Ochsner sought to improve overall employee health and reduce health care costs company-wide. 

Employers will be able to offer rich incentives for employees to participate in workplace wellness programs under final rules issued May 29 by the Obama administration. They will also be allowed to make smokers pay a premium surcharge. 

In honor of National Employee Wellness Month, WorldatWork collected evidence showing the impact of management styles on employee health and wellness. Supportive supervision, employee schedule control, and communications are empirically shown to maximize better health and wellness outcomes.

As the work-life balance debate roars on with employees wondering whether to lean-in or lean-out these days, perception is everything (most recently at Arianna Huffington’s #ThirdMetric conference where redefining success beyond money and power was the focus). And the perception of being cared for in a workplace culture that encourages wellness, just might boast a more committed and happy workforce in the new world of work which is arguably hi-tech, global, and 24/7.

Recognition programs that motivate specific behaviors have jumped to a top-tier goal for organizations for the first time in 11 years, according to the results of a WorldatWork and ITA Group survey, cited by 41 percent of organizations in 2013 versus 25 percent in 2008.

Employers will be able to increase rewards to workers who participate in wellness programs under final rules released by the Obama Administration. The final rules, similar to those proposed in November as part of the Affordable Care Act, have raised concerns among advocates who represent people with chronic or severe illnesses, as well as among some employers. They allow employers to increase workers’ financial stakes from 20 percent of the cost of their health premiums to 30 percent, starting next year.

"What light through yonder window breaks?" Romeo asks in the second act of Shakespeare’s "Romeo and Juliet." Perhaps it is the light of the glow of good health and the brightness of eye of the well-rested. At least, that’s what a recent survey suggests the legendary lover was referring to. 

Company wellness programs for employees that include complementary medicine features like yoga can benefit bottom lines, according to Mark Bertolini, chief executive of the health insurer Aetna.

In background materials about the ACA and its wellness provisions, the U.S. Dept. of Labor explains that, beginning in 2014, the ACA increases "the maximum permissible reward under a health-contingent wellness program from 20 percent to 30 percent of the cost of health coverage, and [increases] the maximum reward to as much as 50 percent for programs designed to prevent or reduce tobacco use."

Controlling health care costs is crucial for Iowa manufacturers to remain competitive. But a big question for many companies is whether investing in an employee wellness program will cut costs and improve productivity. To help answer that question, a team of Iowa State University researchers is conducting a pilot program with three Iowa manufacturers.

Employers are finding that employee wellness programs are just what the doctor ordered. These health management initiatives are designed to keep healthy workers in top form, while helping those with chronic conditions to better manage their illnesses.

If companies want their employees to trim their waistlines, they might need to pay up. According to a new poll commissioned by Workplace Options, a global employee effectiveness company and work-life services provider, 58 percent of American workers would commit to losing weight, quitting smoking, or attending fitness classes if they were offered a monetary incentive by their employer.

Do you have the "fringe benefit" of a workplace wellness programs? The ones that require you to take a blood test and answer health questionnaires – or else. A study of one such program says it isn't working as promised, Reuters reports.

Integrating its employee wellness, productivity, and health care programs into a unified strategy helped Kraft Foods Group reduce its medical spending growth trend from 8 percent in 2009 to 1.2 percent in 2012. In addition, the Dallas-based food giant increased employee participation in health risk assessments from 39 percent to 99.5 percent between 2009 and 2010. Its employees have improved clinical outcomes and better health, based on health risk scores.

The link is strong between the wellness and vitality of an organization and the health and wellness of its employees – resulting in employees’ increased job morale, satisfaction, commitment, and performance. Additionally, employees place a premium on the culture of wellness with 87 percent claiming that health and wellness programs play a role in determining their employer of choice. However, quantifying the bottom-line impact of these programs continues to be a challenge for employers, according to a new survey by Virgin HealthMiles. 

People everywhere struggle to find work-life balance. A better approach, in my mind, is to pursue work-life integration. Rather than a work life and a personal life, two separate entities, the goal should be to have one very full life and work consciously to integrate all of the things that make it meaningful.