8/6/2019 Health Promotion Practitioner: John Harris

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Practical solutions for healthenhancement programming

Plus...Reduce Stressors for Health Promotion Success

How to Hire Wellness Employees Without Getting Burned

Shared Meals Key to Better Family Nutrition

Workers Suffering,

Finds Gallup-HealthwaysWell-Being Index

JULY/AUGUST 2011 VOLUME 20 ISSUE 4ISSN 1060-5517

John HarrisChief Wellness Offi cer an

Vice President of Innovationat Healthway

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Workers Suffering,

John Harris (Chie Wellness Offi cerand Vice President o Innovation atHealthways) used to be rustrated.A ter 34 years in the wellness feld,I watched the stats on unhealthy behaviors just get worse and worse. I

elt like the guy who studied cancer or

years and fnally retired without a cure. Was my career or naught or did I atleast advance the thinking that mightsomeday lead to a cure?

All that changed in 2007 whenHealthways joined the Center orHealth rans ormation led by ormerSpeaker o the House, Newt Gingrich.Gallup was also among the groupsmembers.

John recalls, During our discussions,Healthways and Gallup expressedmutual concerns that health promotionneeded to be studied in the widercontext o well-being, with a defnedmethod or measuring it. SpeakerGingrich suggested we collaborate tofnd a solution.

Conceptualized rom that dialogue,the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being

Index was launched in 2008, leading toa pro ound change not only in Johnsperception about health and well-beingbut also the nations. Our primary goal

was to create a metric sort o a Dow- Jones Industrial Average o well-being. We knew it could provide great insights

on how to change peoples behaviorand create better programming to assistin that effort.

Using their 70+ years o pollingexpertise, Gallup assisted Healthways inselecting the best questions. o achievetheir daily goal o 1000 representativesurveys, Gallup phones approximately 26,000 Americans across the country each day. Last October, the Well-BeingIndex completed its millionth survey. Itasks questions in these domains, with acomposite score representing an averageo all 6: Li e Evaluation Physical Health Emotional Health Healthy Behavior Work Environment Basic Access.

Tese questions assess the work environment: Do employees eel cared about as an

individual? Is their job role a good ft or their

strengths?

Do they work in a trustingenvironment? Do they eel their supervisor treats

them like a partner rather than asubordinate?

Work Environment Reaches Record Low In February, the work environmentcomponent dropped to its lowest

point in the Indexs history and hasnot substantially improved since. Johneels the economy drove much o this

decline. Te Index only goes back to 2008, but Gallup has in ormationgoing back decades. Economies havetightened and automation has cost

jobs. Teres more stri e in the work environment. People eel more sti edand less creative.

spot on...

FindsGallup-HealthwaysWell-Being Index

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However, John doesnt place theblame solely on employers. 50-60years ago everybody... right down toassembly line workers embodied anentrepreneurial spirit. You dont seethat any more. People have increasingly adopted an entitlement mentality. Asa result, the creativity that made thiscountry the biggest economic andindustrial power on the planet has waned. Both workers and companiesneed to rediscover those attitudes.

Looking at the Trends John explains the trends: Te scorethats dropped the most over time iscollaborative supervision. Te work environment has gotten more dog-eat-dog, unemployment is at record

highs, and jobs are less plenti ul.Supervisors can get away with beingless collaborative and more command-and control-oriented. Since employeesneed the job, they put up with morerestrictive management styles.

Employees ability to work to theirstrengths actually trended up. As the work orce got thinner, businessestightened their belts. Since there isless oversight people can use their

strengths more. Being satisfed with the job dropped slightly, probably due todeclines in collaborative management. Yet having a trusting work environment stayed almost exactly level over the 3 years.

John emphasizes that the Well-BeingIndex extends beyond the work environment, but positive scores in allareas contribute to a healthy workplace.Te best work environments makean effort to in uence all 6 domains.It starts with changing the culture.oo o ten we see wellness programs

but no supportive policies such as nosmoking, a beneft plan design thatpromotes prevention, or a physicalplant that encourages movement. Yetmanagement wonders why peoplearent making much use o the healthpromotion program.

When it comes to li estyle, Johndiscovered ascinating correlationsamong the domains. For instance,

weve learned that or every 15 minutes

o commute time, employees angergoes up, the amount o stress they experience increases, their rest perday decreases, exercise levels go down,healthy eating goes down, and obesity rates go up. Few organizations havestopped to think what they can doabout that and what it would mean totheir employees overall well-being.

We also know that i people scorepoorly in the work environment, 31%

o them report being angry or most o the previous day. Put into perspective,that level o anger is on par withthe 100 poorest counties in the US,as well as the troubled countries o Sierra Leone and Haiti. I employeesare already angry when they come to

work, whats the likelihood theyll eelthe necessary trust to get any beneft

rom a health promotion program? Wellness managers need to look artherupstream in employees lives to createan environment that osters healthy change. Use the 6 domains as areas o

well-being in your ramework.

While he doesnt see major differencesin well-being across occupations,

John notes that sel -employed peopleconsistently score better than anybody else. Tis is really about control. Eventhough owning a business is stress ul,you wake up every day knowing you

are in control and have the opportunityto chart your own destiny. Teressomething liberating about that.

A Gallup study per ormedindependently (using Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Indexdata) showed a demonstrably lowersatis action level among union workecompared to nonunion workers.

John theorizes, Bargaining unitso ten cultivate more o a contentiousthem versus us environment. O course, its also possible that some

workplaces werent riendly to workerto begin with and thus needed unionrepresentation.

Te bottom line is we know that acollaborative environment wheremanagement and workers voluntarily partner together, employees eelchallenged, and everyone has theresources to get the job done createthe best possible culture with thehighest well-being.

What the Index Means

to Wellness Professionals John advises wellness pro essionalsto avoid one-size-fts-all workplace

wellness programs. Considerdemographic age bands when makingprogramming decisions. We looked at18-29 year-olds and how they perceivetheir work environment; they routinelyrate it as not so good. Teyve recently entered the work orce and realize a

John emphasizesthat the Well-BeingIndex extendsbeyond the work environment, butpositive scores inall areas contributeto a healthyworkplace.

The bottom line

is we know thata collaborativeenvironment creates the bestpossible culturewith the highestwell-being.

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li etime o work lies ahead. On theother hand, 30-44 year-olds are pretty neutral. In the 45-64 age group, webegin to see an upswing in acceptanceand appreciation o their jobs.Tose still working in the 65+age bracket are off the charts intheir excitement about the work environment. Understand that you acean uphill battle with more negativeyounger workers, while you haveopportunities with a more receptiveaudience o older workers. Developseparate strategies or both.

Tere is a commensurate improvementamong older audiences in other areaso the Index, especially in the practiceso healthy behaviors and emotionalhealth. Tey tend to have better

overall composite scores, making thisdemographic more receptive to healthand wellness messages.

Healthways offers an in-depth work orce well-being analysis oremployers. Tey use the Well-Being Assessment (WBA), a derivative o the Well-Being Index, along with othertools. From a business perspective, John is amazed at how predictivethe WBA is or per ormance o

organizations and employees.For example, on average the higher the workers WBA composite score:

Te lower their annual medical cost Te better their per ormance review Te less unscheduled personal time off Te more likely theyre engaged on

the job Te higher their intention to stay at

their jobs.

For every 1 pointrise in the averageWBA compositescore, a workershealthcare costsare 1% less.

In addition to the impact onindividuals, the higher a teamsaverage composite score, the betterthe team per orms. Business units with the highest average aggregate well-being scores are the onesmost likely to meet their fnancialobjectives. And conversely, businessunits with the lowest composite well-being scores miss their fnancialtargets the most.

Hope for the Future John concludes, Tese last 3 years with the Well-Being Index havegiven me more hope, energy, andexcitement about our chances

or improving the well-being o Americans than I had in all my

previous years combined. Wevecollected an incredible amount o data. Tis in ormation begins toanswer questions that have plaguedus or decades. Tis Index is a 25-year commitment. I honestly believethe lessons learned, and the actionsit allows us to take as a society, willsignifcantly affect the long-termeconomic viability o America.

o access the Gallup-Healthways

Well-Being Index in its entirety, goto www.well-beingindex.com.

For more in ormation, contact Kelly Motley, Senior Media RelationsPartner: Kelly.Motley@healthways.com.

Avoiding theComparisonTrap of BestPractice Every time wehear this phraseapplied tohealthpromotion,it makesus grin.Invariably,the term isused tosuggest that

someonehas done someresearch to confrmthe ideal approach toproduce a desired behavior change.Its o ten associated with healthassessment, high-risk intervention,health coaching methods, incentivemodels, and other tools in a wellnesspractitioners bag o tricks.

Te irony (which produces thegrin) is that while some techniquesare certainly more success ul thanothers, none that we know willproduce unqualifed successes acrosspopulations over time. In act, wesee a decrease in risk assessments andcoaching (while health screenings areon the rise), making the best practicediscussion pointless.

It shouldnt come as a shock that

universally success ul approaches tochanging health behavior dont exist. A trip to the mall or airport willconfrm were not winning thepopulation health war, regardless o the little victories.

John Harris Chief Wellness Offi cer and Vice President of Innovation at Healthways