Moving beyond the buzzword: corporate wellness

By David Peters

Corporate wellness has become one of our new favorite buzzwords. While we were busy calibrating our expectations, leveraging our strengths, and making it pop, corporate wellness has snuck into the day to day conversations being overheard in cubicles and behind many office doors. We have started corporate wellness programs, corporate wellness campaigns, and corporate wellness initiatives. Our HR managers have started keeping track of wellness metrics and wellness targets. Our CEO’s are even starting to preach virtues of corporate wellness.

But why all of this attention around corporate wellness? Isn’t corporate wellness just a business way of saying cut down on the burgers and fries at lunch time? Is there really anything behind this new buzzword? We already know that we should eat healthier and exercise on a regular basis. Do we really need yet another buzzword to remind me of the virtues of the 5am workout?

While eating healthier and exercise are certainly distinct parts of corporate wellness, the concept itself is much more comprehensive. Corporate wellness tries to incorporate a more general sense of healthiness in our day to day office lives – and for good reason. While the smell of McDonald’s french fries at noon is certainly a difficult temptation to overcome, it may not necessarily be the biggest threat to your health. A myriad of articles and news stories have recently focused on something that is much harder for most of us to get away from – our desk chairs. Sitting (and sedentary living in general) can lead to an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and colon cancer (Nelson & Zeratsky, 2012). And boy do Americans ever do a lot of sitting. According to an article on the Mayo Clinic website, 50 to 70 percent of people spend six or more hours sitting a day (Nelson & Zeratsky, 2012). We accountants certainly fit into that mold. If you are like most, you sit at your kitchen table sipping your morning coffee. You sit in your car on the way to work. You sit at your desk most of the day too, making sure your debits equal your credits. Then we sit as we drive home, knowing that tomorrow will be another day of sitting.

Is there really anything you can do about this though? After all, how can accounting not be a desk job? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding yes. Even a simple thing like standing can have profound effects. By reducing your sitting to only 3 hours per day, a person can increase their life expectancy by approximately two years (Nelson & Zeratsky, 2012). Corporate wellness is less about expensive workout equipment and fancy dieting, and more about integrating healthier living into all parts of corporate life. It is about changing corporate culture, and allowing healthy living to permeate the mindset of the organization. Here are some very simple and inexpensive things that can be done to help an organization do exactly that:

1. The Walking Meeting – Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing saying that you have to sit down during a meeting. People don’t think better sitting down, and in certain instances (especially around 2:30 in the afternoon), sitting is more of an invitation to fall asleep than stay engaged. The idea behind the walking meeting is simple – you walk while you talk, usually as you take a lap around the building, or around a park near your office. Aside from getting some fresh air, it also gets your blood flowing. While not a viable alternative for meetings with large groups of people, it works well in small group settings. As Allan Kohll from Corporate Wellness Magazine.com describes “the walking meeting is an active replacement for the typical one-on-one cup of coffee or conference room chat,” (Kohll, 2015).

I can tell you from first-hand experience that the walking meeting certainly feels strange the first-time you do it. However, over time, it becomes more natural. We have been conducting walking meetings at Compare.com for over 2 years now. We have also adopted a relative of the walking meeting as well – the standing meeting. For short meetings, it is starting to become our norm to stand up.

2. The Treadmill Desk and The Bike Desk – Okay, I know what you are thinking – “I can barely get the money in my budget for a regular desk. How in the world am I going to afford a treadmill desk?” They are not as expensive as you might think (you can usually find one for around $2,000 or less), and they are a great way to fit some cardiovascular fitness into the normal workday without paying for massive amounts of gym equipment. Like the walking meeting, this one also takes some getting used to. (Trust me, it takes some time to figure out how fast you can walk and type at the same time!) However, it is a relatively cheap way to promote fitness in everyday office life, not to mention a good conversation starter for clients and office visitors.

3. Healthy Snacks – If your office is anything like mine, food goes fast. If there is anything out in the break area that doesn’t have a name on it, it is certain to disappear. If that’s the case, why not make healthy food available? My office started buying bananas and apples each week about 2 years ago. No matter how many we buy, they always disappear! People love free food – so you might as well have them eat healthy!

These are just a few ways that corporate wellness can be interwoven into the life of an organization. This is not to say that gym memberships or low-carb diets don’t have their place in corporate wellness programs. They certainly do. However, I offer these suggestions as relatively simple ways to integrate corporate wellness into what you already do at work. Whether you take these suggestions or you make up your own, please remember that the ultimate key to successful integration of corporate wellness into your company is having fun. Seeing if your department can out-step the others on the walking treadmill this week can help make corporate wellness an integral part of what the company does. Aside from helping your employees live longer, it will help them be alert, happier, and perform their jobs better.

Works Cited

Kohll, A. (2015, January 23). Walking Meetings: One Small Step for Worksite Wellness. Retrieved from Corporate Wellness Magazine.com: http://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/worksite-wellness/walking-meet…

Nelson, J., & Zeratsky, K. (2012, July 25). Nutrition-wise blog: Do you have 'sitting disease'? Retrieved from Mayo Clinic Website: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/e…