For two days every March, offices around the nation find themselves clutched in the grip of the annual fervor of the NCAA men’s college basketball tournament.  Frankly, it’s easy to see why, as even people who carry a general malaise toward undergraduate roundball get inevitably sucked in to the bevy of Cinderella stories and emotionally charged moments that the tourney consistently brings.  Of course, since the opening (and most exciting) round of the tournament occur during business days, stories lamenting productivity loss and compromised job standards during that time is about as routine as a pre-game layup drill.  Now, these tales are either the gospel truth or downright hokum depending on where you source your media, but whether or not you believe that a severe decline in work occurs during the tourney or not merely scratches the surface of a potentially larger issue.  That is, if your company feels the need to ban the creation of the in-house office pool that has long been associated with March Madness, how can you implement the policy without looking like an utter killjoy?

The secret behind putting the kibosh on an in-house tournament lies in the realization that a healthy chunk of your employees are still going to be invested in the tournament in one way or another.  If you forbid the creation of a tourney pool, do not be naïve to the fact that some of your staff will be involved with a tournament or two in their own personal life.  And with the proliferation of the internet and social media, expect a hoop-centric buzz to emanate throughout the office anyway.  In fact, even if you have stringent anti-surfing computer technology loaded into your network, people will still find ways to get updates throughout the day.  For example, I used to work at a company where cell phones were banned from workstations and whose internet access was limited to federal and state government sites, Mapquest, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (I still have never figured out how or why we were granted access to the latter site).  Yet every time March Madness rolled around, some of my former co-workers still came up with ways to conjure up ongoing results and funnel them throughout the office.  The lesson derived from this anecdote is simple; if you are going to try and prevent people from periodically checking in on tournament action during the first round, be prepared to fight a losing battle. 

And therein lay the best way to handle the tournament if your company feels the need to prohibit an office-wide pool.  Acknowledge the fact that in-house intermittent score-checking will occur during the first round of the tournament, and don’t make too big of a furor about it when it happens.  The key to that statement is “intermittent;” if an employee does nothing but constantly surf the net looking for scores and updates, then there is an obvious problem.  That exception aside, if you allow your employees to occasionally carve out a few seconds to obtain scores without calling them to the carpet, your staff will be much more at ease with your no office pool mandate.  Plus, this small act will serve as recognition of your staff’s interests outside of work, which is something that typically goes a long way.  In other words, you will create a winning situation, which is more than I can hopefully say about Duke this year.

Open Enrollment is oftentimes one of the busiest times of the year for an employer.  However, the economic downturn has made the process much more of an arduous endeavor this time around than in years past, as some companies have had to make the excruciating decision to drastically alter or even remove portions of their benefit packages in order to remain financially strong.  If your company falls into this unfortunate sector, then you know that conveying the information to the workforce is just as nerve wracking as the initial determination itself, if not more so.  Anger and disillusionment can easily drape your staff upon hearing the news that some of their benefits they have enjoyed in previous years are either skyrocketing in price or going away altogether.  However, if you properly prepare this necessary interoffice communication, you can make great strides to minimizing the malaise that will be poised to sweep through the office.

The most important thing you can do in light of the potential onslaught is to be sure the communication with your staff over this matter comes across as empathetic, and not just sympathetic.  In other words, meet their mindset as much as possible.  Make certain each memo, e-mail, and newsletter that addresses benefit changes avoids sounding generically corporate and communicates at the staff’s level.  This approach will help to answer a great deal of the workforce’s “why” questions before they get a chance to be asked. 

You can achieve this by pulling back on using blanket statements and revealing an appropriate level of reasoning behind the decision instead.  For example, phrases like “in these tough economic times” have been so overused as the de facto, near clichéd way to signal that bad financial news is afoot that they have become rather cold, impersonal expressions.  Your employees know that everyone is a wading through treacherous monetary waters; a shopworn statement that merely states the obvious will most likely make you look aloof and unaffected in the eyes of your staff.   The better way to inform your staff about the benefit changes would be to provide as much concrete data to the workforce as you feel comfortable sharing.  Just simply stating the ways the economic downturn have affected the company goes a long way than just reiterating a hodgepodge of “times are tough” rhetoric.   You don’t have to open your books or other private ledgers to accomplish this; merely giving innocuous explanations on how the economy has affected you as an employer will actively demonstrate to your employees that you have felt the pinch of the economy every bit as they have.  Moreover, it enhances the element of equality and camaraderie to decisions that otherwise may look a bit feudalistic. 

Additionally, as you share this information with your workforce, do not try and sugarcoat the situation by beginning your announcement with flowery statements of employee appreciation.  On paper, an opening salvo speaking of how the company cares about its staff looks like a good strategy.  However, the reality is such leadoff phraseology may backfire, because your workforce may interpret it as a bait-and-switch of sorts, which could foster feelings of disingenuousness.  Instead, your best bet is to save the words of compassion until after the news has been broken and the facts and data associated with it have been laid out.  Once this foundation has been established, then you can (and should) build up spires of benevolence. 

Of course, there will be grumblings amongst the workforce no matter how you break the bad tidings.  However, following these guidelines can go a long way into keeping such complaints low, which in turn will lessen any dip in office morale.  It will also help reinforce and strengthen bonds between you and your staff, which can ultimately serve you quite handsomely once the economy recovers.

What do you think?  Would following these guidelines help stem the flow of negative vibes throughout the office?  What tactics have you deployed in informing your workforce about tough decisions regarding benefit changes?

Biggest Loser Season 7 winner Helen Phillips went from a size 22 to a 2.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.  Based on that rationale, it should not be all that surprising to see that companies across the country have created programs which mimic the hit TV program “The Biggest Loser” in the quest to creating a trimmer workforce.  And much like their television doppelganger, these in-house contests typically come with some sort of prize waiting for the most successful participants in the end.  Inherently, it is a brilliant strategy to promote office wellness, as it combines familiarity, incentive, and competitive zeal into a ready-made program that is virtually guaranteed to be met with a great deal of enthusiasm.  However, if it is not monitored properly to ensure good health is the main objective, the program could wade into somewhat treacherous waters.

As anyone who has organized a workforce competition of any kind, competing for all manner of prizes great and small has a spellbinding effect on people, to the point where people will be compelled to do whatever it takes to win.  While that mindset may not be an issue if your office holds a chili cook-off, when it comes to a program based on The Biggest Loser, such a relentless streak could be a potentially dangerous situation if the contest is not monitored with a high level of scrutiny.  For example, people may find it necessary to take radical dietary steps such as starvation or expulsion in their attempt to claim victory.  As a wellness program, the ultimate goal behind a Biggest Loser type competition is good health; if someone attains victory by punishing their body via starvation or expulsion, then the true goal was not really achieved.

So, if you are inspired to build a wellness program around The Biggest Loser framework, how do you go about making sure that people conduct their weight loss appropriately?  Admittedly, it can be difficult to prove that someone is resorting to unhealthy tactics to lose weight.  However, you can curb the temptation to go about weight loss in an ill-advised manner by being proactive, constantly reiterating to the participants just how important it is to lose weight in a fashion that promotes good health along the way.  Don’t be afraid to utilize methods such as handouts and statistic-laden e-mails to highlight the dangers of going about weight loss improperly.  Also, you can encourage the right ways of shedding excess weight by splintering the competition into different categories and offer awards for each subdivision.  For example, you could grant prizes for the biggest drop in BMI index or highest percentage of weight lost (a category that would the upper hand to people who don’t have as much weight to lose, so they do not feel the need to drop past an unhealthy weight threshold). The more categories you have will not only increase the chances of participants’ winning, but it can also go great lengths into discouraging unhealthy tricks.

Like I stated before, the most important message that you want to convey during a Biggest Loser-style contest (or any other weight loss program, for that matter) is the promotion of good health.  If you strive to place as many parameters as you can to ensure people are not trying to achieve health through unhealthy means, you will succeed in spreading that very point.

Recently, I have read a lot of articles and blog postings that encourage such online befriending, stating that a bond in the Facebook world would serve to further fortify the camaraderie between people in the workforce that already consider themselves friends.  Moreover, some of these articles encourage supervisors to use their Facebook page as a means to further reach out to their employees.  The rationale behind this particular mindset is that it would allow supervisors an easy way to show a more personable, “human” side toward the people that they manage, which in turn would allow them to appear more approachable in the workplace.

Frankly, it surprised me to see how much support this approach to Facebook has because it is ultimately a rather unwise idea, because it not only uniquely disrupts work/life balance, it is also a partial intrusion of a worker’s privacy.  If you start befriending co-workers or the people that you supervise, Facebook instantly morphs into a place where the standards and decorum of the workplace unwittingly invade your personal space.  Even if you modify your Facebook behavior to meet these standards, it does not mean that your old high school chum will automatically follow the same rules when he tags you in a photo of that shows you doing something while filled with the bloat of youthful stupidity from a bygone era.  Moreover, befriending co-workers on Facebook will make them privy to information about your private life that you may not feel comfortable conveying to them in a real world setting – information that may ultimately cause an air of awkwardness or embarrassment in a workplace setting. 

If anything, not seeking to be Facebook friends with fellow workforce members, either those above, below, or equal to you, actually comes across as a form of respect.  By declining to be online pals, you are actually honoring the employee’s right to seek a type of disconnection between public and private that runs even deeper than the one that can get occasionally disturbed by a cell phone call or a Blackberry text.  It makes me wonder if the proponents of interoffice Facebook connections equate the website with the quasi-shackles of hand-held technologies; if they do, they really should cease immediately, because such comparisons are fundamentally flawed.  Yes, a call or a text will disrupt your life outside of work, but it does not intrude upon the private matters of your life like a Facebook bond would.

In the end, the cons of creating a Facebook bond with a co-worker far outweigh the pros.  Granted, it might be fun to receive updates on your boss’s dog or view photos of your cubicle neighbor’s vacation.  However, it is much more liberating to be able to enjoy Facebook without forcing it to succumb to the type of workplace impositions that may be best suited for an office break room.

Obviously, it is imperative during this swine flu outbreak that employers continue to provide their staffs with a goodly amount of information regarding the virus and how to fight it. However, it could be just as important to use the swine flu as a springboard, encouraging employees to embrace the concept of annual shot when the next flu season comes around. Apart from the times when a dramatic case like the swine flu grabs a foothold in mass media, people tend to gloss over the vital significance of taking the precautions necessary to protect themselves from influenza strains. But, since we are in the throes of a prevalent strain that is at the forefront of people’s minds, it would make sense to have the utter importance of receiving a flu shot be fiercely reiterated, even if we are a few months away from the traditional flu season. Granted, there is currently no vaccination available to combat the effects of swine flu. However, that issue should absolutely not detract from the fact that there are a host of other influenza strains that could potentially wreak similar shades of internal havoc, and their potential nastiness can be rendered moot through the power of a vaccine.

And make no mistake: Taking a flu shot is indeed an important undertaking, for reasons that are obvious on a small scale and in a big picture setting. In addition to helping to fight off a nasty, unwanted employee illness, it also combats against business-related ailments such as missed time, decreased production, and lowered morale. When viewed from that added perspective, the concept of talking up an annual flu shot amongst the workforce should look quite attractive proposal for all employers to undertake, if not a crucial one.

The force behind the Big Apple’s trans fat ban and the printing of calorie counts on menus, Friden has merged his agenda with the realm of financial punishment for the first time by proposing a penny-per-ounce sales tax on soda, which would raise the cost of your average 12 pack by almost $2.00.  And based on the report he co-authored for the New England Journal of Medicine with Kelly Brownell, the director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Friden has made it very clear that his endgame with the proposal is to not only use taxes as a conditioning agent toward the general populace to discourage buying so-called “sugared beverages,” but to also get them to essentially equate the long-term effects of soda with the dangers of other maligned goods such as smoking.

While Friden’s attempt to stigmatize soda is an obviously ambitious goal, taking the initial step toward vilification out on the public’s wallet is a misguided endeavor.  Because soda is so inextricably linked with food, attempting to coldly justify a tax because of an organization’s aggressive paradigm-shifting agenda has great potential to come across as a mean-spirited imposition that pushes past the borders of personal responsibility, especially given the tumult found in the current economy.  In the report itself, Friden admits that changing the public perception on soda is tantamount to the acceptance of the tax.  Since this is the case, why not work on convincing people on the former before hitting them with the latter?   Granted, trying to get the public to agree to the notion that soda should be even remotely near the same class as cigarettes is a Hurculean task.  However, without seriously working toward this conviction first, the only thing the tax would create amongst the perception’s harshest skeptics – who would more than likely be the ones that would receive the biggest benefit from such a change – would be anger and mistrust, which could potentially derail future healthy causes.

If Friden’s ultimate hope is to make people think twice before grabbing a soda, his best bet is to go on an affront toward the soda manufactures, and not consumers.  While it may seem almost impossible to fathom a radical change in perception amongst a majority of adults, it is much easier to see such a change being embraced by the next generations.  Friden seems to touch on this in his report, stating that children are so impressionable and that the marketing machine behind the soda companies are so crafty, their minds are molded into being compelled to yearn for soft drinks.  Based on that rationale, why not mount a campaign to stymie or at the very least harshly regulate the way soft drinks are marketed toward children?  A combination of decreasing youth-centric marketing and increasing education about soda’s long term effects would go a long way in helping to stem the desire to have these sugared beverages, which in turn would make it much easier to alter the way soda is viewed.  Adding a tax will do nothing to quench a child’s desire for soda any more than raising taxes on Disney toys will stop the child from wanting an action figure from that company’s latest animated feature. 

And therein lay the fundamental problem with the tax:  It does nothing to deglamourize soda.  Removing the luster long associated with soft drinks is the absolute key in winning the battle; if Friden is serious about his quest to get the public to view soda on equal footing as cigarettes this absolutely needs to be his chief cause instead of punishing the public through taxes.  If it is not, the message he is trying to convey through his proposal will be buried underneath a pile of dollar signs.

Do you think taxing soda does a good job or a poor job of addressing wellness concerns?"

First off, I think the bigger question that needs to be addressed in relation to impoverished areas is why it costs more to eat healthy.  The sad fact is, while people may want healthier choices nearby, they may not necessarily be able to enjoy them, as the prices in the Whole Foods market in a poorer neighborhood are not going to be that much cheaper than those in an upscale area.  Placing a moratorium on new fast food places is not going to change this.  In fact, the community may feel alienated and frustrated because the choices they could afford are being held off in favor of places that are out of their budget.  The ban will merely serve to highlight the economic challenges that come with eating healthy, while doing nothing to lessen this burden, which probably has more to do with obesity in depressed community than the proliferation of fast food places.   

Another point of contention is in regards to the government regulating food in schools.  The rights of a child sequestered in a publicly funded educational institution are a completely different animal than the rights of an adult going to a place of business by their own volition.  Moreover, in order to get this argument to click, one would have to assume that an eight or nine year old has the same mental capacity to make the same kind of decisions relating to health that an adult can make, which is simply not the case.  A child that would eat unhealthy food without restrictions would not be able to fully grasp the consequences of their actions, whereas an adult does not have such an excuse.

Also, the drinking while driving analogy can make sense the moment that somebody eating one extra Big Mac could potentially lead to the tragic death of another person.  Until then, it is rather irresponsible to draw conclusions that overindulging in food equates to a regulatory level that is reserved for drunk driving.  DUI laws are strict because of the real possibility of damage that one can inflict on other people who would be affected by the intoxicated driver’s poor choice.  Since the same cannot be said in relation to what a person eats, such an analogy should not be made in this situation.

Finally, Lexi had mentioned that without laws, people could do anything they wanted without concern of the affects on other people.  I absolutely agree with this sentiment.  However, the L.A. City Council’s ruling does not stem from a concern on the affects of other people, because what one chooses to eat simply does not have an affect on those surrounding that individual.  Rather, the essence of the ruling is to protect people form themselves, which is not something that the law is designed to do.

Again, I think the issue that needs to be addressed in the wake of the L.A. City Council’s decision is the expensive cost of healthy food, and how a solution is needed to make healthier options more affordable.  Until then, however, limiting liberties in lieu of increased obesity rates is not the proper reaction.

Admittedly, it may be a little tough to take a hard line stance on the government on this issue.  After all, the endgame of this decision is to increase health by decreasing unhealthy choices, and it is very difficult to view the motive behind the decisions in a negative light.  That being said, it does not grant the rulings themselves the same exemption.  Laws like the ones put forth by the state and local governments the past few weeks ultimately intrude upon important ideas such as personal choice and responsibility.  Granted, from a big picture perspective, the laws are not too unreasonable – menus are not going to suddenly resemble a health food store; it’s not like this week’s Los Angeles ruling is ordering that a wrecking ball be taken to existing fast food places in the designated areas.  However, both decisions at its core boil down to the government making choices on behalf of its people.  If a person wants to eat unhealthy, isn’t it his or her right to do so?  And even though we should rightly be discouraging people from making poor dietary choices, there is a fine line between discouragement and force, and these laws squarely cross into the latter camp. 

Again, the rationale behind these decisions is a worthy one.  There is nothing wrong with desiring better health for people.  However, there has to be a better way to see such a goal come to fruition without the government stepping in to essentially protect people from themselves.

Starting in January 2008, select participants of Wellpoint’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans will launch an online survey tool which will enable participants to rate their physician experiences by utilizing Zagat’s 30-point scale.  While the survey will not tackle the two most important factors in a health-care encounter – quality and cost – it will let their patients rate physicians on elements of trust, communication, availability, and environment.  The main impetus behind the survey seems to revolve around efficiency, in the sense that higher rated experiences will most likely be utilized by would-be patients who are seeking more compact, succinct doctor visits in order to minimize time lost on their busy schedules.  However, there is already a brewing faction of harsh critics toward the ratings system, who says such ratings may cloud or even wholly mask deficiencies in the level of care that would be actually provided.  Ultimately, the detractors are worried that patients may inevitably sacrifice the best care available to them for the sake of shaving off a few extra minutes at the doctor’s office. 

The criticism regarding the concept of Zagat-rated physicians appears to be strongly warranted.  In the wake of the poll that Fidelity Investments conducted earlier this year which re-enforced the notion of ignorance the typical employee has about their benefits, it is quite easy to envision a similar lack of knowledge extending to the medical field itself.  Indeed, one wonders how many people may look at this scale, completely unaware of the important criteria missing from it, and base their health care decision solely on the softened measurements it features.  If the employee happens to be participating in a Consumer Driven Health Plan, this foreboding scenario and its negative ramifications would be magnified even further.  With that being said, it will be interesting to see how Wellpoint attempts to educate their target audience about the chief aspects of individual health care alongside these lesser tangibles.  Hopefully, they will look for ways to emphasize the absolutely vital role quality of care and cost must play in all aspects of health care decision making to its utmost. 

Of course, there is no guarantee that this survey would be embraced by its potential clientele.  People may not embrace the notion of choosing a doctor based on data culled from an organization that is traditionally used to tell them that the filet mignon at Morton’s or Fleming’s is delicious.  This possible mindset could lend itself to a great deal of indifference toward the survey, which is something that Wellpoint understandably would not want to see.  However, given the propensity of the average employee to not be astute in matters of their own healthcare, an apathetic attitude toward the concept of Zagat rated doctors may end up being the best scenario that could occur.  After all, being indifferent towards a product because of unease is a whole lot better than embracing it without being fully clear on its overall concept.

Recently, Fidelity Investments conducted a poll whose results tend to support a case that the average worker does not. For example, only 15% of all employees surveyed stated that they had a very strong understanding of key health insurance terms. Half of the polled workers could not define a flexible spending account or a health reimbursement account, while slightly more than half did not know what a health savings account was. Furthermore, 13% actually did not know what a co-payment was. While the latter number most likely relates to the naiveties that are inherent to fresh souls brand new to the working world (at least one would like to hope this is the case), the other numbers extracted from the poll relate to products that are relatively new and exotic to the workforce compared to the programs that have been the mainstays of most benefits packages. Given the rising frequency in which employers are utilizing CDHPs, this percentile of ignorance is favored to trend upward. Obviously, this is a problem, because uneducated individuals tend to make uneducated decisions, and such poor planning may end up hurting both the employee and the employer in the future.

The main lesson that can be extrapolated from this data is how essential it is for businesses to find different ways to aggressively educate their workforce on their plans, especially if a new plan option is being launched. It is crucial that the instruction stretches beyond the ordinary parameters of merely handing out a pamphlet or two and having the workers to read through it on their own.  uch materials tend to gather more dust than fingerprints when given out autonomously. Instead, find ways to actively engage the workforce in the weeks leading up to the Open Enrollment period. Hold meetings or presentations that thoroughly go over the make-up of the benefits being offered, ensuring everyone grasps the concepts of the plans firmly enough along the way so any guesswork is squelched as much as possible. If you are rolling out a new plan, such as a CDHP, survey what aspects of the plans employees find apprehensive about it and tackle those intimidating facets head-on, as such fears are most likely wrought out of a lack of plan familiarity. Emphasize the strengths of each plan, but be brutally honest with the potential drawbacks. If more traditional health coverage options like an HMO or a PPO are offered make sure that their plan information is not glossed over due to the fact that they have been around for decades. As the aforementioned survey indicates, knowledge of any plan should not be taken for granted.

The underlying purpose of these edification tactics actually end up being twofold. Not only will they improve the knowledge about benefit information amongst the workforce, but it also presents the employer with an opportunity to reiterate to the employee how valuable of an asset they are. These two effects work in synergy to maintain a workforce that is happier and (hopefully) healthier. However, neither effect will do much to expedite employees turning open enrollment paperwork in a timelier manner.