Tag Archives: linkedin

Workplace Stress Is Not in Your Mind

Last year, I ran a series of blog posts about stress. I appreciate the opportunity to share with readers the “demand control” model of stress, which is embraced by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, but in the US has fallen on deaf ears. Too often, employers’ only solution to employee stress is to provide simplistic behavioral programs. While these programs have value, they overstate the role of individual control over stress, and they substantially understate — in fact, ignore — the fact that the workplace itself is at the root of most employee stress.

Here’s an infographic — courtesy of the innovative folks at Visual Loop and Infographic World — that depicts Continue reading →

Give Employees the Wellness Programs They Want?

When I dashed off my video response to Carol Harnett’s “Give Employees What They Want” video blog, I vacillated quite a bit. Of course, I want to give employees the wellness programs they want. But I also want to give them evidence-based wellness programs, which stand the best chance of helping employees improve their health.

Let’s use, as an example, hydration programs. (If you can’t get your mind around the fact that dehydration is not a common health risk among employees in the US, I’ll offer up a more readily acceptable example in a future post.)

Promoting hydration isn’t important, but it’s not harmful, either. So why not just give employees what they want Continue reading →

Is It Wellness? The Truth about Water Consumption and Dehydration

A couple of months ago, Carol Harnett and I engaged in a video dialog about “giving employees what they want.” I think I inadvertently took the discussion off-topic, relative to Carol’s main point about giving employees the benefits they want. I talked about giving employees the wellness programs they want. As an example of programs employees want, I mentioned programs that promote hydration. As soon as I uttered the hydration example, Continue reading →

Social Network or House of Cards? Wellness Professionals Need to Know

Have you been enjoying the recent brouhaha about social networks and health, or “social contagion”? In case you missed it, statisticians and other scientists are in a flap over the analytical methods of Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler, authors of Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives (in which the summarize their research which, they say, shows that components of health such as obesity, tobacco cessation, and happiness spread through networks of “friends”). Carol Harnett did a fine job of deconstructing both sides of the issue in layperson’s terms on Fran Melmed’s blog. Read it here.

Why should those of us in employee wellness care about this? Several reasons, including Continue reading →