GrokTalk Blog

Deloitte reports that over three-quarters of full-time US professionals have experienced employee burnout at their current job. And the American Institute of Stress has published that job stress costs US employers over $300 billion annually as a result of absenteeism, employee turnover, diminished productivity, and more. But since the COVID-19 outbreak, these numbers are rising. ABC News/Washington Post poll reveals 70% of Americans report personal stress as a result of the coronavirus crisis, exceeding the highest level of stress caused by the Great Recession (61% in March 2009). And according to a SHRM survey, work-related concerns left more than 40% of employees feeling hopeless, burned out or exhausted as they grapple with lives altered by COVID-19. 

I recently attended the Texas Business Group on Health (TBGH)’s 2019 Regional Benefits Forums in San Antonio and Houston. Aside from taking advantage of the great opportunity to meet face-to-face with a number of employee benefits professionals from the Lone Star State, I was able to soak in the many insights shared during the educational sessions.  

Social interaction has been shown in numerous research studies to have a direct impact on personal wellbeing. In fact, 48% of healthcare leaders say that virtual social support is the most effective means of sustaining behavior change required for wellness promotion. But even from the conventional wisdom point of view, a supportive community makes an employee’s wellbeing journey more fun, motivating, and effective. 

Grokker’s Founder and CEO, Lorna Borenstein, recently sat down for a webinar with Jae Kullar, Delta Air Line’s Manager of Health & Wellbeing. While exploring the various components of a truly successful, engaging, and employee-first workforce wellbeing program, they focused much of their conversation around “what’s worked” exceptionally well for Delta’s global employee base.

Here’s a startling stat from the CDC: 6 in 10 U.S. adults have a chronic disease and 4 in 10 have two or more. It’s not a stretch to suggest that about half of your workforce is actively managing a serious health condition, such as diabetes or heart disease. But don’t forget about “everybody else” who lives with a combination of engagement-zapping high stress, sleeplessness, poor nutrition, and insufficient physical activity. 

You want your employees to be happy and healthy, right? Of course you do! This means your health and wellness program needs to keep them motivated, inspired, and consistently taking small steps towards big lifestyle changes so they feel their best.

Grokker is off to a running start! We’ve been working hard to ensure our workforce wellbeing solution meets the needs of today’s employees and their HR leaders — and industry movers and shakers are taking notice. We're thankful and proud. It’s certainly an exciting time to serve the HR marketplace with cutting-edge technologies that engage employees and make it easy for them to feel their best. 

When determining the value of your workforce wellbeing program, what metrics matter? The answer depends on what you’re measuring, of course. As the workforce wellbeing landscape has evolved, we’ve seen an expanding definition of success — and the concept of wellness has found a more comfortable place as the more all-encompassing “wellbeing.” You might  be targeting a constellation of goals ranging from lower major medical costs to higher employee retention rates. But what about the increasingly essential — yet difficult to measure — components of your employee experience that actually keep employees happy?

We’re always on a mission to make Grokker more motivating and fun — and that’s what our new Streaks feature aims to do. Recognizing the importance of treating employees like valuable consumers, we developed Streaks to increase the frequency of healthy activity by combining inspiration and tracking. The new functionality uses a combination of daily rewards and digital reminders to keep employees on a path to positive change.

Rolling out a welcome mat of spring flowers, the merry month of May plays host to a number of celebrations from Mother’s Day and Memorial Day to Cinco de Mayo and Star Wars Day (May the fourth be with you!). Here, we won’t let you forget the many health and wellness holidays you can promote with your workforce, too.

Is it really any wonder that the World Health Organization considers stress to be the “health epidemic of the 21st century?” Stress weighs heavily on the minds (and bodies) of employees today:

On Friday, April 5, 2019, Grokker’s Founder and CEO, Lorna Borenstein, was featured on John Sumser’s HRExaminer Radio Hour program, Executive Conversations. Read on for highlights or listen here for details.