Corporate wellness helps employees develop healthier eating and exercise habits, manage stress better and improve overall health. Dietician and nutritionist Mario Caruana writes about the benefits of an all-year healthy lifestyle programme.
As part of its corporate responsibility towards its staff members, GSD Marketing Ltd has embarked on an all-year programme to engage employees in a ‘Healthy lifestyle challenge’. Registered dietician and nutritionist Mario Caruana kicked off the programme by privately assessing individuals to determine the lifestyle changes they need to go for and coaching them collectively for long-term health and well-being.
Being healthy is important for living well and achieving longevity. However, lifestyle changes take time and require support. To convey this support, GSD has invested for the first time in a healthy challenge for employees.
The purpose of the workplace wellness challenge is to encourage healthier lifestyle behaviours and engage people in activities aimed at promoting health-related be-haviours and disease management. The challenge was designed on the concept to reward effort and make it possible for participants to succeed in their needed lifestyle changes.
Such a venture provides benefits for both employees and employers. By enhancing fitness, corporate wellness helps employees develop healthier eating and exercise habits, manage stress better and improve their overall health. Research has clearly shown that such challenges reduce absenteeism and improve job performance and morale (Mujtaba and Cavico, 2013).
Being aware of this, GSD Marketing’s human resources management approached me and a team of fitness instructors from Sky Spirit (http://www.skyspiritmalta.com/) with the aim of increasing employees’ physical activity and manage their dietary intake. For the successful implementation of the programme, the company sponsored incentives such as gym memberships and personalised nutrition consultations.
Being aware that competition can cause physical activity or dietary changes that can be detrimental to any employee’s health, a thorough confidential health screening process of all participants was completed prior to the challenge.
One integral component of the challenge was to internally market a monthly talk to all employees on various aspects of health, such as nutrition, physical activity, stress management and smoking cessation. Such informative sessions catapulted a channel for employees to motivate themselves and enroll into the lifestyle challenge. It is a well-known fact that the start of a lifestyle change is the most difficult.
Indeed, the response obtained was phenomenal and currently there are over 20 employees who are actively taking part in the challenge and another 15 who are part of focus groups I am coaching.
The healthy lifestyle challenge is ongoing and continuously being evaluated. There has been very positive feedback from employees and preliminary results show that most of them who needed weight loss already succeeded to do so in eight weeks.
The company and the team involved believe that such challenges are successful when a supportive and positive climate of fun is present. Investment in employees’ health and wellness will be beneficial for the company in the long run and also for employees, their co-workers, families, communities and society as a whole.
GSD Marketing Ltd are distributors of The Coca-Cola Company products, produced in Malta by The General Soft Drinks Co Ltd, and other drink brands.
www.mariocaruana.com