Creating a Healthier Workplace: Insights from the Mayor's Fitness Council (Full Transcript)

Speaker 1: From a business perspective, we see premiums going up, we see more absences, we know that from experience your energy and your attitude is better when you are healthy, and I think those factors began to come together and this opportunity was created to get involved in the Mayor's Fitness Council.

Speaker 2: One of the first things to do for any employer that's interested in starting a worksite wellness program is to find out from the staff what kinds of wellness activities interest them.

Speaker 3: We planned marathon races, we ended up doing a healthy wellness blog for our employees.

Speaker 1: Most businesses can be stressful environments and creating opportunities conveniently so that people can take advantage of those opportunities that are healthy. Those little things over time add up to a healthier place and a happier place ultimately.

Speaker 3: I like the fact that I can leave work, go down to the 11th floor, work out at the gym for 45 minutes to an hour and not have to sit in Austin traffic.

Speaker 2: Just taking small steps, anything from offering a nutrition class or making fresh fruit available, you're changing your vending machines, there's things that can be done in many settings that don't require a lot of resources.

Speaker 3: We have fruit here at the firm. We also have taken away a lot of our regular sodas, we have mostly diet sodas in our fridge.

Speaker 1: And we've actually seen significant weight loss on our floor, the floor I work on, among the employees there, we've lost about 200 pounds in the last year and a half and I give that credit to the elevated awareness that the Mayor's Fitness Council has brought to our firm.

Speaker 2: In order to get certified, you can download the application from the website and the application is very comprehensive. It gives you a lot of examples of the types of programs and policies you need to have in place in order to meet the certification. In fact, it's so comprehensive you can use it as a guide for wellness programming.

Speaker 3: We have a lot of employees who may have hypertension or diabetes and we tend to all share information and share about doctors and encourage each other to go for regular checkups.

Speaker 1: All the things that are done, the walks, the running, the getting healthy, doing things together as a team, are all things that will help your corporate culture build strong values and relationships so that ultimately the workplace is better and more efficient.

Speaker 2: From a human resources perspective, I think it helps recruit and retain top level faculty and staff members for the university as well as we hope it can improve the health of our employees and reduce our health care costs.

Speaker 3: I love my workplace. I think that it offers us more benefits and it's healthy and everyone here is upbeat and I think a lot of it has to do because everyone here is trying to get physically fit and healthy and stay well.

Speaker 2: It's an exciting time to be in worksite wellness. There are many resources out there, it's popular, people are interested and this is the time to make things happen at a worksite.

Speaker 1: I think ultimately a healthy workplace is a smart workplace.