Occupational Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Newsletter

Occupational Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Newsletter

Newsletter May 2010

The Corporate Health

Assessment

Question

How do you know how fit and healthy your staff are?

Answer

You invite me in to run a seminar during which I get your staff to complete the Health Fitness and Wellbeing Profile.

Why do you need to know?

To protect your investment in your most valuable resource.

I see organisations with absenteeism, presenteeism, workers compensation and employee retention issues that would make you roll your eyes through to the back of your neck!

I see organisations where they keep their equipment in immaculate condition, in sharp contradiction to the people who drive, run and maintain that equipment. It seems incongruous. Definition of equipment? anything from a truck to a keyboard.

I see places where safety is about as good as it gets; yellow lines everywhere, guard rails, signs, you name it. On the other hand the health, fitness and wellbeing of staff is about as bad as it gets.

Coop people up in a 6' x 4' cage for 20 years and feed them flour, sugar and coffee and you're looking at a disaster.

I can let you know how your organisation stacks up against best practice.

The Seminar

I'd recommend the Seven Habits of Fit and Healthy People seminar designed to inspire and motivate your staff to keep themselves fit and healthy to the best of their ability.

Depending on your time constraints the seminar can last 1 hour, 2 hours, 4 hours or 7 hours.

It can be done with small groups or large.

Click here to read more about the program.

The Seven Habits of

Fit and Healthy People

• Keep yourself aerobically fit

• Keep yourself strong

• Keep yourself flexible

• Eat from the top of the Hourglass

• Manage the stress of your life

• Manage the stress of your job

• Meditate

The Profile

During the seminar I get people to complete the Health, Fitness and Wellbeing Profile.

Circle the numbers appropriate to the degree to which you experience the symptoms listed in the 30 questions below. If you never get them, score ‘0’. If you get them a lot, score high. A good score is a low score. A poor score is a high score.

(A suggestion. Print out the profile and complete it before you read the rest of the newsletter. It will provide you with a context for what's to follow.)

	Symptom	None		Not much			A fair bit			A lot
1.	Headaches (including migraines)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
2.	Lack of energy and vitality	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
3.	Candida - jock itch, thrush, tinea ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
4.	Poor sleep. (On medication score 10)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
5.	Snoring &/or sleep apnoea. (On gas mask score 10)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
6.	Crook back, sore shoulders, RSI ...	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
7.	Frequent colds, flu, sinus	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
8.	Reflux	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
9.	Overweight - 1 point for every 2Kg	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
10.	Irritable bowel, constipation, diarrhoea	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11.	Asthma	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
12.	Low level of aerobic fitness	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
13.	Chest pain, palpitations	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
14.	Rashes, itchiness, psoriasis, zits	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
15.	Mouth ulcers, cold sores	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
16.	Elevated blood pressure. (On medication score 10)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
17.	Elevated blood cholesterol (On medication score 10)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
18.	Elevated blood glucose (On medication score 10)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
19.	Shakes, nervous ticks, mannerisms	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
20.	Grinding teeth	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
21.	Alcoholic drinks per day (2 pts/drink)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
22.	Smoking. (1 pt/cigarette/day)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
23.	Caffeine (1 pt/cup per day)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
24.	Anxious about life and/or feel insecure or apprehensive	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
25.	Sad or depressed (On medication, score 10)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
26.	Are you in the wrong job. (Score high if yes.)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
27.	Under-appreciated at work	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
28.	What's your work/life balance like? (Score high it's it poor)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
29.	Are you happy with your family life? (If no, score high)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
30.	Are you happy with your financial status. (If no score high)	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10

Score

The Results

Now for the interesting part.

A good score on the profile is less than 20. Anything over 80 and people are putting up with a lot of 'background noise'. Stress manifests itself in many ways. For some it stays in the mind, for most it permeates throughout the body.

I collate the results and prepare a frequency histogram. Here are three sample graphs from actual surveys; the pretty good, the not bad and the not good!

The table on the left hand side of each graph indicated the percentage of people scoring 5 or more on particular questions.

The pretty good - average score 51

	Issues/symptoms/concerns	% scoring 5 or more
	Overweight	44
	Low level of fitness	31
	Crook back, sore shoulders	25

The not bad - average score 61

	Issues/symptoms/concerns	% scoring 5 or more
	Low level of fitness	49
	Overweight	43
	Crook back, sore shoulders	42
	Poor sleep	39
	Under appreciated at work	32
	Financial status	31
	Snoring, sleep apnoea	28
	Lack of energy	27
	Work-life balance	27
	Alcohol	25
	Elevated blood pressure	24
	Anxious	20

The not good - average score 84

	Issues/symptoms/concerns	% scoring 5 or more
	Poor sleep	63
	Lack of energy	54
	Wrong job	54
	Musculo-skeletal dysfunction	51
	Fitness	51
	Overweight	46
	Under appreciated at work	46
	Snoring	43
	Under appreciated at home	37
	Smoking	34
	Crook gut	31
	Too much alcohol	31
	Anxious	31
	Insecure	31
	Depressed	31
	Unhappy family	29
	Colds and flu	20
	Irritable bowel	20

So what's it all mean?

Staff come away with a realistic picture of what sort of shape they're in. They also come away with a list of things they've written down that they propose to do to improve their health, fitness and wellbeing.

If they're diligent they can halve their scores in 3 months. For most people it's a shorts-and-sandshoes-led recovery. You can certainly encourage that in the workplace.

As an HR or OH&S manager you come away with a good snap shot of the health, fitness and wellbeing of your staff. Why? because it lies at the very heart of your productivity.

Percy Cerutty said 'It's not that you're alive but how much alive you are.' You want staff that are so alive they've got abundant energy, vitality and enthusiasm for their lives and their careers.

Take a look at the list of things the not-good-group registered as issues. symptoms and concerns. What sort of productivity do you think is delivered by staff when 54% of them are in the wrong job, when they're tired and wracked with pain?

If I collate the results section by section, managers come away with a pretty good picture of how their staff are travelling and clues as to what they (the managers) need to do to change the picture.

What about one-on-one assessments?

Yep, this is a good idea. 20 minutes per person sounds about right. It gives me time to talk to people and provide them with some lifestyle counselling. But you'd want to do it for everyone, other wise those at gravest risk to your organisation don't come.

This stuff is as serious as a fire drill. Everyone has to go. It's a confidential service organisations provide to their staff for the benefit of both parties.

What about cholesterol, glucose and blood pressure?

If you think it's important I can measure these indicators of metabolic function while taking people through the profile. Blood pressure is probably the most useful because it leads into a discussion about stress and relaxation.

What's the damage?

I have a daily rate that covers how ever many seminars, for how ever long you want.

There's a fee of $3.30 per person to collate the results and prepare the audit report.

I get you to run off the profile questionnaire and a double-sided A4 worksheet.

For the day programs there is a fee for a 60 page interactive workbook and the per person fee to collate the results and prepare the audit report.

In the mean time stay tuned, highly tuned and remember, if it's broke fix it. If it ain't broke maintain it in good shape.

Regards

John Miller

GLOBAL BACK CARE

I've established the www.globalbackcare.com website so your staff can download my ebooks on fixing the common musculo-skeletal dysfunctions.

If you'd like to provide your staff with access to these books I can tell you one thing; I'll sharpen the pencil down to a stub!