No Money? No Problem!

According to the Minnesota Department of Health, for every $1.00 a company invests in worksite wellness, they can receive approximately $3-6.00 in return. Sounds great if you the extra money to invest in health promotion right? Well if you don’t have that extra budget, don’t worry! There are still a lot of great changes you can make at your worksite that are FREE!

When you are tight on a budget, it’s important to focus on environmental changes to your worksite vs. programming.  Do your vending machines consist of all fatty, processed foods? Are your employees sitting in their desks all day? Do you provide nothing but donuts and pizza at your company meetings? Are your employees eating at their desks and not taking time for breaks?  If you answered yes to any of these questions, you have an opportunity to make some great environmental changes to your worksite.  

You really don’t need to invest a lot of money into worksite wellness. Just focus on eliminating the barriers and temptations (like those candy dishes!) and focus on creating an environment that supports and encourages healthy behaviors.

 

My challenge for you is to look at your worksite, and I mean REALLY look at it. What are some barriers or obstacles that are not allowing your employees to become healthier? What temptations are you providing?  Make a list of these barriers, and focus on changing one at a time. Even those small and simple changes can make a BIG difference!

Price Incentives for Healthier Food

The worksite is an important environment in which the majority of the adult population spends a significant portion of their day over a period of years. Intervention strategies that change worksite environmental factors related to food, such as the type of foods available and their prices, have been examined in previous nutrition interventions studies. In both school and worksite settings, pricing, alone or in combination with availability, had a strong, dose-response effect on sales of healthy snacks from the vending machines.  


Does your worksite offer snacks for employees? If so, have they ever thought about offering the healthier foods for a cheaper price than the unhealthier foods? Many times people say that an obstacle to eating healthy is the price. Healthier foods tend to be more expensive. One way to reduce that barrier is to lower the price of healthier options and increase the costs of unhealthier options. Check out how this worksite offers price incentives for their snacks. Notice that they also put the healthier foods at eye level, and the unhealthier foods at the bottom.

Source: JOEM Vol. 52, Number 1 Supplment, January 2010.