Newswise — As health care costs continue to rise for American organizations and their employees, stakeholders are looking for innovative approaches to creating a healthy workforce.
In Kentucky—which ranks 49th among all states in Gallup’s national index of well-being, has the 2nd highest prevalence of heart attacks in the country and the 5th highest prevalence of diabetes—innovative solutions have become a business imperative.
A new research report, "Creating Healthy Organizations: Promising Practices in Kentucky," released today by the University of Kentucky’s Institute for Workplace Innovation (iwin), hopes to provide organizations in Kentucky and beyond with new ways to improve employee health and well-being while also improving the bottom line.
Sponsored in part by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), CVS Caremark and UK HealthCare, this extensive report showcases the promising practices of 23 Kentucky organizations that contribute to a healthy workforce.
“We heard from employers that they needed help in finding innovative, comprehensive ways to promote health and we knew there were great practices occurring right here in Kentucky," said Jennifer Swanberg, executive director of iwin. "We wanted to create a tool for employers to use when faced with changing organizational and employee behavior around health.
“Kentucky is a state faced with complex health care challenges. If organizations here can make an impact on employee health, our state’s best-practice examples can provide organizations everywhere with tools to improve their workers’ health as well.”
In addition to highlighting case studies of Kentucky organizations, the report also presents a new, evidence-based "HealthIntegrated Model" that was developed by iwin and informed by a review of literature and in-depth interviews with employers featured in the report.
“Health and wellness programs cannot be isolated from the overall strategic business plan,” Swanberg said. “They must be integrated into the operations of the business to truly make an impact, and our new HealthIntegrated Model will provide employers with an approach to do this.”
GE Appliances and Lighting is one organization that participated in the report. With over 27,000 employees worldwide and 5,000 employees in Kentucky, the organization looks for comprehensive ways to improve the health of its employees, retirees, and their families.
“Finding the right ways to connect with our employees and their families on health and wellness is essential to business success," said Donna Stone, health care manager at GE. "This is not a nice to-do but a must-do to motivate and retain the best talent and remain competitive. The more ideas the better the solution and iwin is helping connect employers to have those dialogues.”
The report was released to iwin’s Innovative Employer Roundtable Partners Oct. 13 and is available for download as a free PDF from http://www.uky.edu/Centers/iwin/workplace_research/HealthyOrgReport.pdf.
The University of Kentucky Institute for Workplace Innovation, founded by Jennifer Swanberg, is a university-based research center with a mission to develop and disseminate knowledge about the 21st century workplace to create work environments that boost the bottom line, employee health, and work-life fit.
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