Cal/OSHA Compliance Advisor Employee Wellness

1 Cal/OSHA Compliance Advisor3(800) 695-7178 MAY 2006 Each Employee who gives upsmoking results in an immediate sav-ings conservatively estimated at morethan $3,000 a year in direct medicalcosts and lost productivity. That saccording to Ann Arbor, Michigan,health coach Theresa could realize similar savings, shepoints out, if workers lose 5 percentof their body weight, successfully par-ticipate in a fitness program, or learnjob-stress management techniques. Inthe long run, the potential return onyour investment is even greater workers who don t develop cancer,heart disease, or diabetes are a realasset to their emerging type of Wellness program shows promise in reachingworkers who haven t taken advan-tage of traditional Wellness s called health coaching, and it hashelped workers quit smoking , stickwith a fitness regimen, lose weight,and develop job stress coping skillsthat have improved their health, theirproductivity, and their employers bottom line.

2 And here s the mostinteresting part: All the coaching isdone by Is Health Coaching?Health coaching is a partnershipbetween the coach and client thatfocuses on lifestyle goals, saysRadosevich, the executive vice presi-dent for Leade Health, Inc., whichprovides health coaching servicesthroughout the country. Coaches contact their clients bytelephone, conducting an initial inter-view using open-ended questions,reflective listening, and a stages ofchange assessment to determine howready the client is to take action. Thecoach s role, Radosevich says, is torecognize and minimize barriers tochange, including existing healthproblems like depression, anxiety,and eating disorders. As an example,consider someone who is trying toquit smoking . A client might say, I mworried that if I quit smoking , I llgain weight. A health coach canhelp the individual identify weightmaintenance strategies to eliminatethe worry that quitting smoking willresult in weight gain.

3 Coaches alsoprovide physician referrals for clientswhose medical issues are affectingtheir ability to improve their underly-ing the initial phone call, coachesfollow up with clients by telephone toassess their progress. The number offollow-up calls is determined by thetype of program and the amount ofsupport the individual appears toneed, based on the initial interview. How Does It Work?A vital aspect of health coaching isthat it enables the individual to deter-mine his or her own strategies forchange, rather than being told by thecoach what to do, says Susan BlockV zina, president of Fitness by Phone,a Southern California-based companythat provides telephone-based person-al training. We support people inbecoming responsible, V zina says. The more responsibility clients takefor their own health, the more highlymotivated her company has foundthem to be.

4 Fitness by Phone hasstopped calling clients, and nowrequires clients to call their trainersinstead. The change resulted in anincrease in Compliance . We ve beenamazed, V zina says. Fitness byPhone clients have a 75 to 80 percentcompliance rate. Generally, compli-ance for face-to-face fitness trainingprogram is below 20 percent, shesays. We have trouble getting peopleto show up. Another key factor is zina and Radosevich agree: Itmakes a difference that the clientdoesn t have to meet the coach at acertain place and time. Our coacheswork seven days a week, at all times,in all time zones, says Radosevich. They can accommodate workerswho want their coaching at 9:30 a Sunday. Combining personal responsibilityand convenience is powerful. LikeV zina, Radosevich has seen individu-als succeed with phone-based healthcoaching who might have otherwisefailed.

5 The national quit rate for alltypes of smoking cessation programsis 12 to 20 percent, she notes, butamong employer groups using LeadeHealth s program, quit rates are 28 per-cent. Leade Health s weight manage-ment programs, which aim for a 5 per-cent reduction in body weight over asix-month period, have a 37 percentsuccess rate. Stress management num-bers are even more impressive: 50 per-cent of Leade Health s clients reportreduced symptoms (headaches, insom-nia, and stomachaches) after 6 months. One of the most surprising resultsRadosevich has seen is that the pro-gram reaches men. Wellness pro-grams have traditionally had a hardtime getting men to participate, shesays, but as many men complete ourprogram as women. She attributesthat to a third characteristic of tele-phone-supported programs: privacy. You re not sitting with a group ofpeople hearing your issues and con-cerns.

6 It s one on one. An Ounce of Prevention The biggest reason to put theseprograms in place, Radosevich says, is to keep low-risk individuals in yourcompany low-risk. This is truly a pre-ventive strategy. Once an individualcrosses into a high-risk or diseased cat-egory once a worker develops dia-betes, heart disease, lung cancer, oranother condition related to obesity,stress, or smoking they start to costthe employer a lot of money. Health coaching may be availablethrough your company s health planor Employee Assistance Plan. nEmployee Wellness : Phone Coaching Programs Can Be a One-On-OneWay to Better Health