GrokTalk Blog

Most of us — if not all of us — have participated in an employer-sponsored wellness program of some sort. Even if we’re old enough to remember when it was perfectly acceptable to light up a cigarette in the office, we’ve grown accustomed to our employers offering health screenings, fitness challenges, or educational lunch-and-learns to promote healthy habits. And if we're lucky, our employer provides personalized wellbeing tools that we can access on-demand, when and where we need them the most. 

For many employees, particularly women, the workday doesn’t end when they log off their computer and stop answering emails. It changes. During their “second shift,” they’re taking care of their children and aging parents, getting a meal on the table, and managing any number of other household obligations.  

Pinterest has employees around the globe, but they all share a focus on whole-person wellbeing. Whether they're working in San Francisco, CA, or Ireland, UK, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Brazil, or Canada, they have the opportunity to participate in the company's Beingwell workforce wellbeing program and explore the tenets of mind, body, community, and financial wellness.

LuckyVitamin, an e-commerce company supplying over 38,000 natural and organic products to customers around the globe, is truly “walking the talk” of workforce wellbeing. With a mission to support anyone — including their employees — on their journey toward happy wellness, they promote and enable the pursuit of wellbeing in all that they do.

If you’re an HR leader interested in soaking up all-things workforce and technology, the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas is where you’ll want to be this week. But if you didn’t make the trip to this year’s HR Tech Conference and you’re hungry for the latest and greatest in the area of workforce wellbeing technology, we’ve got you covered: Grokker is here to share the top insights we’re taking away from each day of the event. 

There’s never been a more dynamic time to be an HR leader: Opportunities for innovation and progress abound. The workforce is becoming more diverse and dispersed every day. Technology is changing the way we communicate and deliver benefits. Getting HR “right” is now a strategic imperative that can make or break an organization’s position in its marketplace. 

Did you know that 61% of employees are more likely to accept a job with a new employer — and 59% are likely to remain loyal to their current employer —  if health and wellbeing benefits are offered? What’s more, 55% have left jobs in the past because they found better benefits or perks elsewhere. Since your employee recruiting, retention, and engagement efforts depend on a winning workforce wellbeing program, you need to know what top talent expects in a solution — and where your program might fall short. Let’s go!

Deloitte reports that over three-quarters of full-time US professionals have experienced employee burnout at their current job. The World Health Organization considers stress to be the “health epidemic of the 21st century.” 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. 

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.