“What we found just shocked us,” said Jo Ann Mendenhall, human resources manager. “We had over 90 percent participation, but something like 80 percent overweight or obese.”
You don’t have to specialize in HR issues to grasp the bottom-line implications of that: Study after study has documented poor health in general and excess weight in particular as prime contributors to underperformance and workplace absenteeism. So the folks at Zahner found a little religion on the subject, and the annual health fair was hatched.
“We put big money behind it, and it was working,” she said. Employees did indeed take the weight off. But too many saw it yo-yo back up, and found themselves on the end of a repetitive company message about taking control of their health.
Something in the organizational approach was missing.
“We keep on preaching to employees about lowering their cholesterol, exercising more, eating right—we even brought in a nutritionist,” Mendenhall said. “We’re pouring information into our employees, but we were looking for a way to set a good example as managers.”
That’s what has led Bill Zahner, the company’s president, to the 2010 installment of the Fittest Executives and Fittest Companies Challenge. Zahner will be part of a five-member team competing for the first time, and one of those five will be Mendenhall herself.
“We want to be a healthy example for the employees,” she said. “We have roughly 200, and about 160 of them are sheet-metal workers, plus folks who travel a lot and have a hard time eating right, so we figured we’d put our money where our mouth is.”
The Potential Payoff
Here’s what a work force looks like after implementation of a successful corporate wellness program: People collectively lower their weight and develop greater muscle mass. Their blood pressure readings are down; their blood lipid readings are improved. They’re less likely to be flirting with Type II diabetes, a weight-related epidemic sweeping this nation.
Those employees are also more energetic and more productive, and they cost less to insure. But getting them to that place is easier when the benefits of healthier lifestyles are discussed in the first person, from the top.
“The Fittest Execs isn’t just about health and fitness—it’s about leadership,” said Dan McDonough of Health Designs, a consultancy involved in organizing this year’s Fittest Execs program. “Participants in the Fittest Execs and Fittest Companies Challenge are business leaders who understand the need to harness the true engine of improvement in American health care—the engine of prevention and the value-driven strategies and actions of employers.”
Prevention, he said, is the best means of reducing the economic impact of illness in the workplace. By some projections, such prevention strategies, if fully employed, could reduce the cost of health care in the U.S. by nearly 70 percent, McDonough said.
The best way to ensure success with a corporate fitness program, he said, is to include seven strategies identified by The Wellness Council of America. Among those elements: Data collection. Detailed operational structures. Careful analytics. But at the top of the list was this: Capturing senior-level support.
“The Fittest Execs Challenge serves as a foundational program of leadership in support of employee good health,” McDonough said. “Participation by C-suite executives of organizations across Kansas City is a formidable display of support, role modeling and, most of all, leadership.”
That’s what’s bringing the Athletic and Rehabilitation Center of Kansas City back into this year’s field, and this year, as one of the sponsors, said Dorothy Cobb, who participated last year and earned top honors as Fittest Woman Under 50.
“Our continued goal for this competition is to show how executive teams can be an example of involvement and support for health and wellness initiatives within their own companies,” Cobb said. ARC, she said, believes that if wellness initiatives are to be accepted by employees in any company, “there must be committed and active leadership supporting those initiatives or they will never be successful.”
A Solid Start
Back in sponsorship roles this year are the Metropolitan Medical Society of Greater Kansas City, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, the YMCA of Greater Kansas City and Holmes Murphy & Associates. They helped launch the program last fall with 130 initial competitors from nearly two dozen corporate teams. Roughly 100 days later, more than 80 percent of those individuals had completed the fitness regimen, and 77 percent finished with improved health metrics.
They were, in other words, measurably healthier when they finished Fittest Execs than they were when they began.
Their health metrics were measured across a range of 15 indicators, including blood lipids (high- and low-density lipoproteins, triglycerides), chest and leg press, flexibility, aerobic capacity, and more. Each measurement was assigned a low-to-high point value of 1 to 10, with a possible top score of 150.
No one began the competition at that level, but two competitors finished there—Scott Kashman, CEO of St. Joseph Hospital, and Mark Anstoetter, a lawyer with Shook Hardy & Bacon. More than 20 percent of those who completed the program ended up within hailing distance of that top score, with readings of 140 or better.
Even at the lower level, that represents an average score of 9.33 on that 10-point scale for every single one of the 15 measurements.
The competition yielded several revelations:
• Executive leadership works. Jack Stack Barbecue proved that with two teams and an unmatched level of corporate support. Its participants benefited from multiple perks, including the counsel of a personal trainer. The investment paid off with winning entries in the categories of Most Improved Team, and most improved health metrics in both men’s age categories.
• Fitness doesn’t have to hurt. Some contestants, at the higher end of the scoring ranges, were already at marathon-running level when the competition started. Others, though, were able to sharply raise their metrics with comparatively light lifting: jogging, bike-riding or simply making a commitment to walk more.
• Picking between exercise and other demands on your time is a false choice. Many competitors found that they could incorporate short exercise routines into their schedules without giving up big blocks of time. And many realized big improvements in health metrics just by making smarter choices about what they ate, and how much.
• Better health means more than losing weight. Combined, the field lost more than 400 pounds, with a top individual loss of 49 pounds. But, as former Metro Med President John Sheldon said, a better indicator of true health improvement may have been with those who raised their health scores by 20 points on that 150-point scale. A full 10 percent of the field met that threshold.
• Once broken, a bad habit is easier to control. Case Dorman, partner at Jack Stack BBQ, said that of the 10 participants from last year, six were still consulting the personal trainer, and all were still involved in efforts to adopt healthier lifestyles. That’s
why the company this year will field two more teams, largely with new faces, to spread the message throughout management and staff ranks, Dorman said.
ROUND II
This year’s program incorporates several changes from the debut version. Gone will be the “adjusted” scores, which gave added weight to individuals who e xceeded the top of the scale readings on individual health metrics. So a reading of 150 will earn a share of the title.
In addition, the scoring will be more gender-specific, taking into account certain aspects of the physiological differences between men and women.
And, perhaps of greatest relief to many who participated last year through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s, it won’t run through the heart of the holiday noshing season. Preliminary health assessments for individuals, through the YMCA, run from August 10 to 31, and the fitness wagon rolls on Sept. 1. The competition wraps up as late as December 20 with final health assessments to gauge improvements. Ingram’s encourages area organizations to “Get in the game!” 