COACHING GOES TO WORK: Coaching Employees Not Only Helps Save Money, It Helps Make Money
Part 1: An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure - Saving Money with Wellness Coaching
Back in the pre-recession salad days of the mid-2000’s, an acquaintance of mine, primary care internist Dr. M, regaled me with some interesting insider info about his practice. It was Dr. M who first shocked me with the news that up to 80% of all illnesses in the United States are 100% preventable, costing up to 90 cents of every dollar we spend on health care. (This tidbit has proved accurate, and has been supported in study after recent study*.) If Americans would just stop smoking, eat more intelligently (more fresh plant-based and less processed food), exercise regularly, drink less alcohol, get enough sleep, and - most importantly, per Dr. M - manage their stress levels, we’d not only feel better, we’d age more slowly, look great, get more done, think more creatively, and stay healthy longer. This would save trillions in health care dollars which currently go to treatment of chronic “lifestyle” diseases.
But because we are so unsuccessful at managing our bad habits and unhealthy lifestyles, “the United States spends more per capita than any other nation on health care, including $1.5 trillion in medical costs associated with chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer — diseases that have a direct link to smoking and obesity, the nation's two largest national risk factors.”**
It’s no secret that as a nation we’ve been getting fatter and fatter for years, and continue to get fatter still. Nearly two-thirds of us are merely overweight, while an estimated one in three Americans are clinically obese (having a body mass index of 30 or higher). Colorado is the only state with an obesity level under 20%***. Hello, ever-increasing rates of diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, bone and joint ailments, hormone and fertility problems, weight management … hello, more money spent on avoidable expensive treatments and surgeries … hello, productivity lowered due to time lost and attention distracted … hello, unnecessary pain and suffering -
Why this fin de siècle / millennial engorging? It’s not just about food, claims a recent New York Times article. A major factor in our ballooning size (and concomitant declining health/ballooning health care costs) can be attributed at least in part to the modern workplace+: the move from the farm to the factory to the office, into increasingly sedentary desk/computer jobs that involve little to no physical activity for eight hours a day, five days a week.
Meanwhile, a study by the American Journal of Epidemiology has revealed that sitting for six or more hours a day increases your risk of dying from anything by 34%, regardless of how much exercise you do. Many of us spend at least that much time at the office ensconced in our cube, affixed to our computer screens.
Our sedentary rather than active lifestyle, at work as well as at play (driving, watching television, playing computer games, etc.), does not fully take the onus off our dismal eating habits. The shift from savoring farm-fresh produce and proteins at mealtime to inhaling high salt/sugar/fat, heavily processed, corn-based food “products”, as well as fast food and fried food, on the run have indeed contributed to our weight and health woes.
Curiously, for the first time in decades - despite the warning labels, graphic television and print PSA’s, and general public awareness of the risks - recent studies reveal that more Americans, notably young Americans, are choosing to take up cigarette smoking. An expression of some unnamable millennial malaise? Revisiting a readily-available, established coping tool to ease the stresses of the modern, impossibly high-speed world? Perhaps. In any case, more smokers will breed more smoking-related, degenerative diseases, costly to treat. Killing them softly, slowly,
So let’s recap: Individuals, employers, insurance companies, the government (a.k.a., we the people) – we’re all paying billions every year to treat illnesses that are 100% preventable. We are getting sick from diseases that we and we alone have the power to entirely avoid. We alone are creating our own suffering. Very disturbing. Insane, even. And we are trending towards even more of the same. It will not only continue to costs us a fortune, it will eventually make us go broke. And it will kill us earlier, with less dignity, than necessary.
Interestingly, most of Dr. M’s patients enjoyed health insurance coverage through their job. They could get treatment for whatever ails them. Dr. M, a European-born, primary-care internist practicing in Manhattan, found that even when the patients who came to see him weren’t ill per se, they were indeed still suffering. From overwhelm. Stress. Dissatisfaction. Exhaustion. Frustration. Most of it, they claimed, work-related. He was convinced (and studies have borne out) that their, and our, unhealthiness - manifesting in high blood pressure, insomnia, headaches, digestive and skin disorders, addictions, infertility - stemmed in large part from our unhappiness. We are generally miserable, overworked and unfulfilled, anxious, stressed to the breaking point. To escape our discontent, we smoke, drink too much, zone out in front of the tube, eat ourselves into oblivion. Make ourselves sicker and sicker.
Sick and tired, and now fatter to boot. Wouldn’t it be just so easy, just so satisfying to blame our jobs and our bosses for all that ails us? Tempting, but unfair. Because before we could even walk upright, the world has long been a threatening place, fraught with dangers visited upon us by other men and Mother Nature. Is working for a difficult, unappreciative boss scarier than the possibility of being mauled by a saber-toothed tiger on the way home from hunting/gathering? Is being asked to relocate to Florida worse than being forced to relocate due to the ravages of war, or flooding or drought, or some other Force Majeure? Is feeling unfulfilled, that your life is being fritted away doing soul-eroding work, harder to deal with than watching your crops decimated by locusts? How about living under the constant threat of termination, is that more stressful than living with the constant threat of stoning for any number of arbitrary infractions? I think not. Or falling victim to a terrorist bomb en route to or while at work? Well, maybe …
Today, as with every age, we have a new set of challenges to face at home and at work. To their credit, more and more progressive corporations recognize that the human is indeed the most precious of all resources. They continue to expand upon their already comprehensive employee benefits service programs (EBS’s), and have begun shifting from just treatment for existing ailments (psychotherapy, addictions counseling, nutrition programs, physical therapy, discounted gym memberships) to more wellness/prevention-based offerings (corporate food/fitness challenges, on site gym and childcare, vaccination drives). Still, several great ironies remain at play here: 1. That so many employees fail to take advantage of the array of medical and other services their disposal for cheap or for free; 2. That when they do, they realize only modest, if any, success; 3. That they are necessary at all.
Because wouldn’t it be wiser to give people the information, tools, encouragement and support they need to stay strong and healthy, physically and emotionally, rather than offer to fix them after they break? Corporate wellness training programs emphasizing prevention (stress management, relaxation/meditation, nutrition, exercise, etc.) are a giant step in the right direction: towards optimal health, away from developing illness in the first place.
Fortunately, more companies are following the lead of Google and Zappos.com, offering readily-available on-site life coaching to employees at all levels. Employee wellness coaching, provided by an in-house or outside source, offering individualized programs, personalized support, and participant accountability, further concretizes the work, giving it a much deeper hedge to success and sustainability. The top coaching topic on employees’ minds, after career development? Weight management.
These companies know that a healthy employee is a more dynamic, engaged, innovative, productive and profitable employee who will cost less in terms of down time and heath care. A quantitative and qualitative win-win for employer and employee alike. All for a fraction of the coast of most treatments. Indeed, coaching’s RoI has been shown to exceed 500%! Which brings us to …
Part 2: Getting Engaged - Making More Money Through Leadership and Empowerment Coaching
To be continued …
*http://preventdisease.com/worksite_wellness/health_stats.shtml
***http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2010/06/29/colorado-now-the-only-state-with-obesity-rate-less-than-20/
+http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/less-active-at-work-americans-have-packed-on-pounds/?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
© 2011 Theresa Quadrozzi - A-Muse-In-Manhattan. All rights reserved.
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