credit union wellness wisdom: SOLUTIONS TO THE TOP 5 WELLNESS QUANDARIES

Transcription

1 credit union wellness wisdom: SOLUTIONS TO THE TOP 5 WELLNESS QUANDARIES

2 WELLNESS WISDOM FROM OUR CREDIT UNION EXPERTS Our wellness gurus received hubbub Tournament of Champions medals at the CUNA HR/TD Council Conference. Ashley Shreeve Assistant Vice President of HR Goldenwest Credit Union Nicole Colgan Director of HR/Employee Development TwinStar Credit Union team members love hubbub! 2 credit union wellness wisdom: solutions to the top 5 wellness quandaries Barbara Cecil Director of HR Maps Credit Union

3 what is your biggest wellness quandary? This is the question hubbub asked attendees at this year s CUNA HR/TD council. We received responses from more than 50 credit unions and found that there were 5 top quandaries that challenge HR pros across the country. To find solutions, we conducted a round-table discussion with 3 experts who have found success with their wellness programs. Here s a summary of some of the wellness wisdom they shared with us: WELLNESS QUANDARY #1: GETTING LEADERSHIP SUPPORT SHOWCASE YOUR LEADERSHIP S INTERESTS Just like you, executives have interests outside of work. Whether they re into golf, yoga, reading, crossword puzzles, or you name it, demonstrate how the program will support their interests and you ll have a better chance of getting backing. ASHLEY S TIP We have some pretty zany senior team members and they were really excited to show a different side of themselves. The week before the program launched, we filmed videos of them doing a variety of wellness related things, and placed them on the internet. We even had a video of our CEO sitting with me trying to do yoga poses and falling over. PRE-LAUNCH THE PROGRAM WITH SENIOR STAFF Pre-launching your program with senior staff is a great way to generate internal support for your program. Key stakeholders will feel as though they were involved in the implementation process, and in addition, they ll learn about the program and get their teams involved. And remember, while your CEO may have the ultimate say-so, having the support of all your company s senior managers can help speed the path to approvals. ASHLEY S TIP When you think about leadership support or management, it s not just about executives but all senior staff members as well as branch managers. We knew that having all senior management support would be critical as this was a big cultural shift. We needed their support at all of the individual locations and they needed the opportunity to discover for themselves why this was such an important program. DEMONSTRATE THE EFFECT A WELLNESS PROGRAM CAN HAVE ON CLAIMS EXPERIENCE AND PREMIUM RATES Before implementing a wellness program, Maps Credit Union had been experiencing fairly significant increases in claims for a number of years. Executives were looking for a way to keep premiums in check. By demonstrating that a wellness program would have a positive impact on premiums and claims experience, Barbara, Director of HR for Maps, gained widespread support for her program. BARBARA S TIP We could demonstrate that by putting some time and energy into throwing some things out there to staff as ideas to improve their wellness, it was really going to catch fire in the organization. Over a period of about a year and a half we started to see some really good decreases in claims experience. ASHLEY S TIP Really, when you re looking at wellness, the hard and fast data is what your CFO and your executives are really going to look at. Trends in claims history and those types of expenses that you can track in dollars and cents. I really encourage you to make sure that you understand how to calculate those and how to make sure that you can demonstrate the value in terms of dollars. But know, and make sure your executives understand, this ROI will come over the long-term, not just in 30 days, or even 6 months. 3

4 WELLNESS QUANDARY #1: GETTING LEADERSHIP SUPPORT CONTINUED HELP THEM SEE IT S THE RIGHT THING TO DO Claims experiences. Premiums. The cold hard dollars and cents. It s all important. But people are more than just line items on a balance sheet. So while a wellness program will help you save money and increase productivity, it s also just plain good for your employees. ASHLEY S TIP What got our team and our leaders to agree that wellness was important? Honestly, I can tell you in one word: guilt. It sounds kind of funny, but we are asking our employees to do, every day, all day long, what their bodies were not meant to do. We were not meant to sit behind desks or stand behind a teller line. We needed to make sure that we were doing something to prolong the health and well-being of the human capital that we pay so, so dearly for. WELLNESS QUANDARY #2: GETTING EMPLOYEES TO ENGAGE WITH LIMITED RESOURCES INSPIRE SOME HEALTHY COMPETITION While your workforce may be distributed, you re still one big family. And like any happy family, you re competitive. Launching simple wellness challenges can be a great way to inspire your employees to get involved. NICOLE S TIP People all across our company are talking about their wellness now. There s a competitive spirit, even between vice presidents and call center reps. We launch challenges and I hear in the hallway, Did you do your walls sits today? or Boy, those killed me! It s bringing people together that, especially because we re so spread out, would not typically be in conversation. OFFER INCENTIVES Have a limited budget? Offering simple incentives such as gift cards, juicers, or a break on health insurance costs can help generate excitement and get your workforce engaged. SHOW YOUR WORKFORCE THIS IS REALLY FOR THEM Whether you realize it or not, everyone in your office (most likely) has a wellness goal. Lose weight. De-stress. Drink less caffeine. It s just a part of being human. We all want to improve ourselves. Unfortunately, all too often corporate wellness programs can just feel like another because corporate said so mandate. Show your employees that your wellness program isn t just for the company, that it s in service of their goals, and they ll be more likely to buy in. ASHLEY S TIP It s not always just about a gift card or a tangible item, but helping your staff understand that the real benefit is a support system to help them improve their health that with this program, they reach whatever goal they have set for themselves, and their employer supports them in their goal. NICOLE S TIP Even with a small budget, you can find creative incentives to help keep employees engaged. There s always got to be a little bit of a carrot to keep them moving in the right direction. ASHLEY S TIP While people will do it for themselves, little incentives help to keep people going. We have only a thousand dollars budgeted for our incentives for more than 400 people and have found that offering simple prizes such as gift cards or juicers [for employees who complete a certain number of challenges, or reach certain goals] really helps to keep people going. REWIND MINGLE MOVE HUBBUB HEALTHY CHALLENGES BALANCE NOURISH 4 credit union wellness wisdom: solutions to the top 5 wellness quandaries

5 WELLNESS QUANDARY #3: DEMONSTRATING RETURN-ON-INVESTMENT (ROI) LOOK TO THE LONG-TERM When your employees are engaged, a wellness program will save your organization money. In fact, a recent Harvard Business Review study showed that on average wellness programs produce a financial return of 6 to 1. But the ROI won t come overnight. It takes time for the habits to take hold and the health of your staff to improve. ASHLEY S TIP Going into it, we understood, and so did our executives, that we wouldn t see a returnon-investment, or big decrease in premiums or claims experiences, in the first month or even the first year. Yes, we re hoping for that. But we re really looking to year three for those kinds of results. BARBARA S TIP Over a year and a half, we started to see some really good decreases in claims experience. IT S NOT JUST ABOUT DOLLARS AND CENTS ROI can come in many forms, and not all of them can be easily tracked in dollars and cents. Simple things such as a more positive office environment, or better daily food choices, will go a long way toward making your staff happier, healthier and more engaged in their work. ASHLEY S TIP What we are seeing a lot of, and this is where I want to say ROI comes in many different shapes and sizes, is behavior changes. For example, people are absolutely embarrassed at this point to bring a soda into our corporate office. Not that they are teased or anything, but they really make a conscious effort because they know others are observing their behaviors. TESTIMONIALS TELL THE STORY Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, a single, powerful story is worth a thousand metrics. Capture a few of these stories and relay them to your executives. It ll help demonstrate how the program is impacting your workforce in a way that line item numbers simply can t. ASHLEY S TIP Here s a quick story. We have a very young father and husband who is working at one of our local branches. He is a manager. He was a little bit resentful of the fact that we were highly encouraging all of our managers to go get their biometrics done. He went and got them done. He came to HR and actually thanked me. He said Look, I did not even realize that I had such a cholesterol problem. In fact, my numbers were so high they couldn t even track it on the hubbub system. It was like whoa, this is crazy. He s someone who, without medication and other exercising that he is going to do, was a walking heart attack. I m not going to be able to prove that in year one, two, three, four that we helped save a huge medical claim, but we may have prevented an open heart surgery ten years down the road. BARBARA S TIP I think the biggest thing is, the conversations at the water cooler have changed. People aren t bringing in donuts for celebrations anymore. They re bringing fresh fruit and vegetables and healthy hummus dips and things like that. Show those examples and the ROI becomes clear. 5

6 WELLNESS QUANDARY #4: NOT ENOUGH TIME TO ADMINISTER OR MANAGE THE PROGRAM CREATE A WELLNESS COMMITTEE We know what you re thinking, Not another committee! Well, don t worry. This is one your team will actually want to be a part of. NICOLE S TIP We have a wellness committee here that consists of representation from all of our branches as well as our corporate office. Since implementing hubbub, we have a lot of people that want to be part of that. You just need to find people that are motivated and passionate and utilize those people. But, having a fun program in place first is what makes them want to get involved. CREATE WELLNESS CAPTAINS As an HR professional, you have a list of responsibilities a mile long and wellness is only one of them. So it s critical that you delegate some of the responsibility to make sure things get done. Wellness captains are a great way to span the geographical boundaries and get your team involved at the local level. DITCH THE PAPER, GO DIGITAL If your wellness program relies on long paper-based surveys or reports, it s time to kiss them goodbye. After all, who wants to take the time to fill out a wellness survey? Consider using a digital solution to track and encourage participation. NICOLE S TIP We re a 200 person organization. Before we switched to hubbub, we had about 48 people participating in our program. It was a very labor-intensive, paper-driven, turn-in-a-survey-at-the-end-of-each-quarter process. Not very many people engaged with it because they didn t want to have to go through the trouble of completing that report for their $100 reimbursement. Since turning to [the online solution] hubbub, we now have 150 members of our staff involved. ASHLEY S TIP We aren t given any budget for a wellness coordinator. I am that person along with all of the million other things that I have to do. To help me manage the program, we created wellness captains. Every department or branch, we have 26 across the state of Utah, has a wellness captain. 6 credit union wellness wisdom: solutions to the top 5 wellness quandaries

7 GA M S E = WELLNESS QUANDARY #5: MANAGING THE PROGRAM ACROSS MULTIPLE LOCATIONS CREATE COMPANY-WIDE CHALLENGES Take a quick walk. Drink 20 ounces of water daily. Creating company-wide challenges can be a great way to break abstract wellness goals, such as lose weight, into simple activities. NICOLE S TIP We do a lot of launching of challenges via . That way it gets the whole company talking about it at the water cooler, and people start to get competitive. It really makes it fun. FIND WAYS TO SPREAD THE NEWS While your workforce may be spread out, technology makes it easier than ever to create a sense of community. NICOLE S TIP It s really about getting your team members who aren t in the corporate office involved. We recently started publishing a wellness newsletter. For example, we pay for some of our employees who are interested in doing fun runs or marathons or 5Ks, we ll pay for their entry fee. Then we have them send us a picture. They ll wear their TwinStar shirt and they send us a picture and then we can spread that on our website or in our newsletter. HELP EMPLOYEES MAKE IT THEIR OWN No one likes big corporate mandates telling them how to manage their own personal health. But we bet everyone you know has some wellness goal. Help your employees see that, at the end of the day, this is really to help them reach whatever goals they have, and they ll be a lot more likely to get involved. NICOLE S TIP It s really all about finding those cheerleaders. Those passionate people who really believe in the program. They ll be the ones out there encouraging their fellow co-workers, handing out sign-ups for teams and getting the spirit up for challenges. In talking with a lot of people and just knowing our leadership, it s really about that gesture about how much we care about you as employees, that you re more than just an employee to us. We really want people to want to work here and to stay here. It s just one other way that we felt was important to show them that we really care about them and their health. That it s not just dollars and cents, that we do really care about people. We have a really family-oriented culture here. Even though we ve grown significantly, especially in the past few years, we really want to try to maintain that. 7

8 A SURE-FIRE SOLUTION TO ALL YOUR WELLNESS WOES? ASK THE FRIENDLY FOLKS AT HUBBUB TO HELP hubbub is a technology-driven wellness solution that uses social circles, the love of the game, a turnkey incentive engine, and the quickest health quiz on the planet to inspire employees to get moving and live healthy. And while the purpose of this document was to help you with your wellness program and we try not to toot our own horn, we re happy to let Ashley, Nicole and Barbara do it for us. NICOLE S TIP Honestly, since we purchased hubbub, our wellness program basically runs itself. We re around a 200 person organization and before we switched to hubbub, we had about 48 people participating in our wellness program. We now have 150 staff members involved. BARBARA S TIP For us, it was all about getting the hubbub buzz out there, and once we did, the program has begun running itself. People are excited now, and engaged in the program, and people really love it. ASHLEY S TIP All I can say is, just use the system. Use hubbub for what it can provide you. It just makes things easy, and fun and your wellness program will really just run itself. With hubbub, we now have more than 80% of our staff engaged. for more information, go to hubbubhealth.com/employers Printed on recycled paper for a healthier planet HS/ hubbub