MARCH 2020HR TECH OUTLOOK8In MyOpinionWellness. The dictionary definition of wellness is "the state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal." As individuals, and as companies, we tend to think of wellness as physical wellness - being in good shape, exercising, eating right. But it is much more than that. According to Gallup, employees who rank high on the five elements of well-being - purpose, social, financial, community and physical - outperform other employees across several areas, and cost the company less money in healthcare costs and turnover, and are 81 percent less likely to seek a new employer in the next year.As organizations, we have a responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees while they are at work. But, we should go a step further. Offering a wellness program - even a very simple one - not only is the right thing to do, it makes solid business sense. Employee engagement, well-being, and job performance are closely tied. If you are not paying attention to the well-being of your employees, you may be missing an opportunity to foster engagement and improve performance. When I started working at The Granite Group three years ago, we were facing escalating healthcare costs for Tracie Sponenberg, SVP HR, The Granite GroupInvesting in Employee WellnessMakes GoodBusinessSensea myriad of reasons - but largely because of unhealthy employee habits. We had offered biometrics for several years but had not done a deep dive into the data. So, we decided to work toward creating a culture of wellness. This was not easy in our industry, which does not have a stellar reputation for healthy habits (we are a wholesaler of plumbing, heating, cooling, water and propane supplies.) With 35 locations and 500 employees across six states and an HR team of three, we were able to create a program that works for us. And so it can for you. Here are five things we learned:Get support from the topIn our case, our CEO was onboard with a change from the very beginning, as was our entire executive team. Like most initiatives, executive support is crucial.You cannot change those who do not want to be changed, and you can't control everythingWe have employees who smoke, drink alcohol excessively, do not exercise and/or eat poorly. Some of them would not change behavior for anything. Since forcing behavior change (if, for example, we dis-allowed smoking within a certain radius of our By
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