ASHHRA Health and Wellness Pulse

American Society for Health Care Human Resources Administration

Benefit Trends
Chris Ceplenski, BLR
In an engaging session titled "The Case for Financial Wellness," Jennifer Benz, founder and CEO of Benz Communications, and Brant Suddath, director of compensation at The Home Depot, advocated for providing financial wellness services to your employees while making sure they are getting full use of everything you already offer.

Visit http://thrive.blr.com/content/good-benefits-communication-financial-wellness-employees-and-business to view the full article online.

 
Melissa Blazejak, HR Daily Advisor
Want to attract and retain top talent? Who doesn’t these days? According to some, your benefits package is the key to getting great talent in the door; but how can you compete with the Googles and the Apples? Glassdoor compiled a list of the most unique and surprising benefits and perks that companies are offering to their employees. Here are a few of the most outlandish perks being offered.

Visit http://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2016/07/12/want-retain-top-talent-panda-fridays-benefits-key/ to view the full article online.

 
Financial
Annette Boyle, Fierce Healthcare
The Affordable Care Act provision that allows health plans to charge tobacco users higher premiums appears to have suppressed insurance enrollment rather than encouraged smoking cessation, according to a new study published by Health Affairs.

Visit http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/payer/study-premium-surcharge-discourages-health-plan-enrollment-not-smoking to view the full article online.

 
Paige Minemyer, Fierce Healthcare
Team training for hospital staff can reduce patient death by 15 percent and cut medical errors by 19 percent, according to a new study. Team training focuses on cooperation, with each person trained in a specific role and taught to work together, according to an announcement of the study, which was authored by faculty at Rice University, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the University of Central Florida, the U.S. Department of Defense and the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center.

Visit http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/healthcare/team-training-for-healthcare-staff-may-reduce-patient-death-medical-errors to view the full article online.

 
Stephen Mihm, Bloomberg
Few rituals of the modern workplace evoke more dread than the annual performance review. Like a colonoscopy or root canal, it has been viewed as a necessary evil: deeply unpleasant but indispensable for the health of an organization. These methods of reviewing workers themselves are evaluated and, like so many employees, sometimes found wanting.

Visit http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-06-09/rating-the-employee-review-needs-improvement to view the full article online.

 
Empower Retirement
Workplace Programs & Perks
Pete Jansons, The Hiring Site
Employee engagement can be difficult at any time of year, but summer poses particular challenges in most workplaces. Clockwatching may become the activity of choice at your small business as workers count down the minutes until they can putter around in their gardens or fire up the grill. How can you compete with sunshine? Consider the following low-cost ways to engage your employees.

Visit http://thehiringsite.careerbuilder.com/2016/07/01/low-cost-ways-engage-employees/ to view the full article online.

 
Switch and Shift
Many companies provide perks, because they know happy employees are more productive, loyal employees. But some companies take their benefits to the next level. The best business owners know healthy minds and bodies will keep the company healthy by improving employee motivation. Take a look at what some companies offer their employees plus a few additional perks you should consider adding to your list of benefits.

Visit http://switchandshift.com/perks-maintain-employee-motivation to view the full article online.

 
Chad Brooks, Business News Daily
If you're worried that a workplace fundraiser will make your employees feel obligated to donate money they can't afford, think again. New research from Gallup shows that the vast majority of employees who donate money to fundraisers at work do so because they want to, not because they feel they have to.

Visit http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9188-workplace-fundraisers.html to view the full article online.

 
Retirement
Lenny Sanicola, World at Work
A new longitudinal study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found strong evidence that older workers who retire even one year later have lower mortality rates, holding true for both healthy and unhealthy people.

Visit http://blog.worldatwork.org/2016/06/is-working-longer-good-for-your.html to view the full article online.

 
Workplace Wellness
HR BLR
More employers are investing in "total well-being" programs that address areas such as financial and emotional health, according to the 7th annual survey on corporate health and well-being from Fidelity Investments Benefits Consulting and the National Business Group on Health (NBGH). The survey revealed that employers are adding programs that help their workers manage stress, improve their resiliency and assist with their financial challenges.

Visit http://hr.blr.com/HR-news/Benefits-Leave/Employee-Wellness/Wellness-programs-improve-employees-emotions/# to view the full article online.

 
Patti Neighmond, NPR
Stress has long been shown to increase the risk of heart disease, obesity, diabetes and a number of mental health problems. And a recent poll finds that a substantial number of working adults say stress is a critical health issue they face at work. The poll was conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. So what are employers doing about it? Fifty-one percent of the people in our poll said their workplace has a formal wellness or health improvement program.

Visit http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/07/18/486093979/wellness-programs-take-aim-at-workplace-stress to view the full article online.

 
Work-Life Integration
Rose Stanley, World at Work
"Employees’ well-being (meaningful work, purposeful work and a sense of community/interconnectedness) is guaranteed with the introduction of workplace spirituality," according to the 2013 research study "The Impact of Workplace Spirituality and Employees’ Wellbeing at the Industrial Sector: The Nigerian Experience."

Visit http://blog.worldatwork.org/2016/06/the-role-of-spiritual-well-being-in.html to view the full article online.

 
Mental Health
Marty Stempniak, Hospitals & Health Networks
Feeling burned out is a common complaint from nurses in the field, but what’s less prevalent are tried-and-true solutions to solving this issue. One nurse, in a social media post last week, went so far as to call the problem a Rubik’s Cube. The Critical Care Societies Collaborative, however, is attempting to get to the bottom of this problem and just last week, released a new study in the American Journal of Critical Care detailing some ways to address it.

Visit http://www.hhnmag.com/articles/7447-burnout-common-among-icu-nurses-5-tips-for-retaining-new-nurses to view the full article online.

 
Caroline Spiezio, Employee Benefit News
Employers know that stress in the workplace is a problem. But what they don’t know, according to a recent report from Willis Towers Watson, is where that stress is coming from. The report found that while 75 percent of employers ranked stress as their top health and productivity concern, their picks as top stressors didn’t match those of their employees. Both agreed that inadequate staffing was a top stressor, but other than that, their opinions seemed to diverge.

Visit http://www.benefitnews.com/news/employees-employers-differ-on-top-workplace-stressors to view the full article online.

 
Population Health
Donna Marbury, Behavioral Healthcare
As the health care landscape moves to patient-centered models, it is imperative that whole-person care — which includes creating strategies for large populations of patients — be an integral part of behavioral health. However, creating population health strategies for the specialty has its challenges.

Visit http://www.behavioral.net/article/how-leverage-population-health-strategies to view the full article online.

 
Wellness Trends
Sheryl Smolkin, Employee Benefit News
An increasing number of organizations already offer, or are considering, mindfulness programs at work. But selecting the right vendor and mode of delivery for programs that aim to reduce stress, anxiety and even depression is critical in order to enhance employee participation and program success.

Visit http://www.benefitnews.com/news/corporate-mindfulness-programs-grow-in-popularity to view the full article online.

 

Take a lunch break with us and join fellow human resources and organizational development professionals in this lively monthly chat about the hottest topics in the field! Sponsored by the Learning & Education Committee of ASHHRA, we meet online the first Thursday of every month from 12:30-1:30 p.m. CT.

 

 
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