Any discussion about health care often starts with what happens at the doctor’s office. But when you compare the amount of time an average person spends at the doctor’s office to the amount of time they spend at work, it’s easy to see that your boss can have more impact on your daily wellness than your doctor.
“I’m convinced health care doesn’t start at the doctor — it starts at home and at work,” says Dr. Preston Maring, associate physician-in-chief at Kaiser Permanente’s East Bay Medical Center. “What better place to influence people’s health than a place where they may eat two meals a day? Focusing on employee wellness is not just good business — it’s good for our population.”
Maring’s tips are preventive medicine at its best, and although they help with absenteeism and presenteeism, he suggests businesses simply focus on the health benefits.
Smart Business spoke with Maring about how employers can help their employees live a healthier lifestyle.
What can employers do to improve wellness?
One of the simplest things employers can do is to provide easy ways for employees to access good foods on the job. Also, think about offering some fun, simple ways to help people know what to do with fresh fruits and vegetables.
According to recent statistics, only 14 percent of people eat the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and 40 percent of what people eat is food prepared outside the home. Most of that is fast food and pizza.
If you can encourage employees to cook even one more meal per week at home than they currently do, you could begin to transform the health of the population. Plus, your employees would basically get a raise out of the deal.
Let’s take a $40,000-a-year employee at any workplace in America. Think about a family of four going out for dinner at a family restaurant. They’re going to spend $50 or more. Plus, they sometimes go out three times a week.
You can cook a simple, tasty and quick meal for four at home for $10 to $15. That saves them $30 to $50 from not going out. Multiply that by 52 weeks or even 50 weeks. If you save yourself $50 a week by cooking just one extra meal at home, you save $1,500 to $2,000 a year. That employee with the $40,000 salary has just received a 5 percent raise, after taxes, in a down economy.
But what if your employees don’t know how to cook?
There are a few ways to demystify how to prepare simple meals at home. Employers can partner with someone in the community who is doing low-cost cooking classes or just research online cooking education resources and find some way to make it easily available for employees. Maybe it’s a DVD of a cooking series you found online, or maybe it’s giving away a new chef’s knife or cutting board as a prize for top salesperson or employee of the month.
Those are basic tools that can change someone’s life. A good sharp chef’s knife can transform your life and how you eat.
