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The reason to start a worksite wellness program is simple, according to Julie Jackman.  "Where do you spend most of your day?" she asks.  "At work, of course."

Jackman is the Program Coordinator for the Fit Community program in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.  In this role, she leads the county's Worksite Wellness Program.  Fit Community is a grant program designed for NorthCarolina communities with the goal of increasing routine physical activity and healthy eating through diverse partnerships, promotions, programs, policies, and physical projects.  Active Living by Design and the North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund worked closely to design and implement the grant program, and Active Living by Design provides direct technical assistance to applicants and grantees.

The Mecklenburg County Fit Community program aims to improve employee health by assisting local employers in creating an environment that is conducive to healthy eating and physical activity.  For example, the program aims to increase employee access to healthy foods and limit access to less healthy foods typically found in vending machines. Their Worksite Wellness Program is a part of the Fit City Challenge, a community-level initiative started in October 2003 to encourage and empower program participants to increase their level of physical activity and fruit and vegetable consumption.

The Fit City Worksite Wellness Program has three main components and is available to businesses with 100 or more employees in Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte, North Carolina's largest city.  First, the program offers a free onsite assessment designed to consider both the opportunities for and barriers to physical activity and healthy eating in the workplace.  Recommendations for improvement are provided based on the results of the assessment. Finally, about three months later, Jackman follows up with the businesses to track progress toward the recommendations.  So far, the Worksite Wellness Program has provided assessments and recommendations for 20 businesses, and follow ups are ongoing.

Program officials believe healthier employees can mean lower health care costs, less sick time away from work, improved productivity, reduced workplace injury, and better employee morale. Jackman says the Worksite Wellness Program is "structured for employers to get the best return on their investments," considering that obesity and related illnesses can costs billions of dollars every year in direct care costs and lost productivity.  "We are not a weight loss program.  We are a program that helps you plan for wellness," she says.

Amdocs, Inc., a Charlotte company, is a success story for the Worksite Wellness Program.  "They were typical of the type of company we work with," Jackman recalls.  "Just like the others, they said, ‘We need to focus on wellness, but we don't know what to do.' " When Amdoc's site supervisor Mike Miceli was approached by his employees with the idea of creating a healthy workplace, he knew it was a great idea, but he didn't know where to start.  The Worksite Wellness team visited the company, conducted an assessment, and provided recommendations.  Miceli said of these recommendations, "Some were very simple, like placing fitness magazines in the break rooms or offering a beginner's class in the onsite fitness center. Others were much more involved and took a little more planning."  Other changes included trees and plants added to their interior, a farmer onsite to sell produce every week at lunch time, a Wellness Week where they offered lunch-and-learn sessions, and a walking challenge.  One employee even created a wellness intranet site that included MP-3 downloads.  Jackman says formal evaluation of the program has proven difficult, so stories such as the one from Amdocs and accounts of personal accomplishment have been the markers of the program's success.  "Simply, I just want to see people make changes," she says of her own gauge of the program's success.  Always with a passion for fitness and nutrition, Jackman has worked in both business settings and as a personal trainer.  Both experiences have given her a perspective of what is wrong with the business world in terms of health and how it can be fixed.  "I know what's going on in these workplaces, because these things were a barrier to me as an employee for so many years."

It's true: most people spend a majority of their day at work, and too often work is not a healthy enough place.  Jackman and others at the Mecklenburg County Worksite Wellness Program hope that impacting people's lives and behaviors in such an important location will have a trickle down effect into the rest oftheir lives.  The Fit City Challenge is also incorporating a Fit Families initiative and advocating for daycare policies to increase physical activity and healthy eating. "We want our work to impact people for all areas of their life," Jackman said, "and their workplace is a great place to start."

Resources

Fit Community Designation and Grants Program

Fit City Challenge

Fit City Worksite Wellness Program

North Carolina Health and Wellness Trust Fund