My latest rant against Corporate Wellness programs is up at The Conference Board Review.
Here’s a new way to burn some calories.
- Put down the Snickers bar.
- Wipe the grease off your chubby fingers.
- Get your fat butt over there and read it.
Corporate Wellness Rant
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I was eating a Milky Way!
The great thing about HR silliness is that it offers so many soft targets. (budumpump)
I was once witness to a member of a former employers HR team receiving a special bonus check for suggesting and implementing a bagel policy. No longer were donuts welcome at any meeting or gathering at the company, but instead to improve employee wellness, bagels would be substituted for said donuts.
That is innovation and genius that we are not capturing! This is the type of things that share holders want! Krispy Kremes are deadly and must not be allowed to enter our hallowed corporate halls, but feel free to lay on a 3 inch slather of cream cheese on your bagel and feel good that you saving the world.
@Michael I was eating a Kit Kat!
@Franny You’re here all week, are you? Should we try the fish?
@Jimmy When some genius at Pfizer suggested fruit in the vending machines instead of candy, I almost went for blood. We make cholesterol-lowering drugs, for chrissake. We can fix the effects of a Twix.
Hi Laurie,
I work at an insurance company and was recently asked to be vendor managemer for our work place wellness programs that we’re shoving on employers. Since I actually care about my other job responsibilties a lot more and it’s wonderfully liberating to be given responsibility for a product that you care nothing about. It’s almost zen-like.
Unfortunately, this survey in Health Affairs magazine (you need to subscribe to see the article) shows the trend is moving against you. Most employers and employees think it’s perfectly all right to talk about how many doughnuts everyone is eating.
Here’s an excerpt from the study.
“This paper presents findings about weight management programs at the workplace, and employers
@Deadhedge This is why I cannot wait to sell corporate America my Bite-Sized Solutions for Success
Just read your rant on Wellness. I agree 100%. I don’t care what some insurance survey says, Wellness Programs (and the attendant Health Care Management for those with chronic illness)is just a diversionary tactic to avoid dealing with our broken health care system.
There is also the invasion of privacy that assumes that we all need “healthcare nannies” asking to check our cholestrol and other crap. If the federal government did this we would be begging for legistlation to keep them out of our bodily fluids.
Somehow this can be justified in the name of productivity.
Do you know what we call our wellness team members?
Food Nazi’s
Enough said.
@Ali I agree — we don’t want socialized health care but it’s okay for my company to know my BMI. Fuck that.
@Sarah Ugh, wellness teams. Don’t even get me started.
Yes, they’ve overshot the mark. But I’m glad smoking in the workplace isn’t common anymore.
@theblueflame Do we thank science or corporate wellness programs for that?
Science provided the ammunition. Primitive corporate wellness programs created policies that banned smoking from wokplaces, one company at a time. This didn’t much resemble the modern, bloated, intrusive things you’re really talking about, though.
Some fraction of these wellness programs may actually be helpful – in some blue collar organizations particularly, the staff may not always have the wherewithal (educational, assertiveness, medical) to manage their own chronic illnesses very well. It’s easy to imagine the diabetic who, because of poor understanding or poor doctoring, has no idea that he needs an annual ophthalmological exam or a periodic podiatric exam. He’s more likely to keep those eyes/feet if they get looked at regularly.