Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Ron Goetzel, Senior Scientist at the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. As the Principal Investigator of the Promoting Healthy Workplaces Project, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, I'd like to introduce you to three companies that have created a culture of health at their workplaces. These companies, along with six others we visited as part of this initiative, have built remarkable programs that promote workers' health and well-being. The stories you'll hear from company executives, program implementers, and line workers are more than just stories. They're backed by results, hard data demonstrating that the health promotion programs in place for many years are not just good for workers, they're also good for business. These are Stories with Substance. First, we'll hear from executives and employees at NextJump, a successful small e-commerce company headquartered in New York City. NextJump's business philosophy is proof that being small can be an asset when building a wellness program and changing corporate culture while at the same time achieving amazing business results.

Speaker 2: Health and wellness is, you know, one of our foundational principles. We believe that in order to do your best work, you have to first take care of yourself. And so that's really what originated our fitness and nutrition programs. So I think people come here knowing that they will be taken care of, they will have great energy both in and out of work.

Speaker 3: We as a wellness team try to help you manage your energy, manage your ability. Through fitness, through nutrition, through different kind of psychological and emotional coaching programs, we want you to be the best you you can be.

Speaker 4: They do encourage those breaks so that you can go back and actually do a better job. And because the gym is here in the workplace, because the healthy snacks, we're surrounded by them, it becomes easier to disengage in that way and take that 20-minute break and come back to work and be able to get your work done more efficiently.

Speaker 5: Basically it's a process and not the outcome which matters. So it's not just working out like traditional strength training, but having different classes like boxing or even dance classes or ping pong.

Speaker 2: We stress, we encourage people to work out twice a week for 20 minutes. If we had some unattainable goal, like three or five days a week for an hour, we don't think that people would be as inclined to participate.

Speaker 6: People ask us all the time the ROI question, do you know if it works? It absolutely works. Our sales growth for five years averaged 30% year-over-year, which is a good number, but it's so consistent for five years. For the last two, now going on three years, it jumped to 120%, four-fold growth rate. The only variable we moved was continuing to invest in our people.

Speaker 7: The company's been thriving and growing at a fast pace, and the more that we take care of our family and invest in employee growth through health, nutrition, and also emotionally and mentally, the company does better.

Speaker 8: The way we look at it is, why wouldn't you invest in your employees? Your people, if you take care of them, are going to take care of your business.

Speaker 6: I don't believe there are very few CEOs left on this planet who don't believe that is the right thing to do. However, they don't have the courage, the proof, to actually go do it. I think what is more revolutionary is the fact that we have more than one person who believes it, and we are doing it.

Speaker 2: It's a great example NextGen has set up, and it'll be amazing to see other companies adopting. Other companies thinking about implementing programs, I would really encourage them to make it easy to put that health and wellness at people's fingertips.

Speaker 8: I think a lot of people don't start because they're trying to get this perfect plan. You know, a lot of people will come in and say, yeah, well, we can't build a fitness center. But we didn't either. But it just, if you find it important, you'll find a way to start.

Speaker 7: Start reasonable and grow from there. Don't try and go from zero to 100 miles an hour.

Speaker 6: Human beings take time to change. Health leaders give up before they actually see the change.

Speaker 2: The benefits have been huge. So not only are people healthier and happier and more productive, but it's a great way for people to bond and to become closer in different ways.

Speaker 6: What we'll do even 20 years from now will be very different than what we do today. But the one thing that has been consistent has been the culture we built.

Speaker 1: Next, we'll travel across the river to New Jersey and interview employees and senior managers at Johnson & Johnson, a large multinational corporation with 129,000 workers and operations in more than 60 countries. Johnson & Johnson was a pioneer in developing health promotion programs starting in the late 1970s. It has won the prestigious C. Everett Cooper Award and has sustained its program for over 30 years.

Speaker 9: The culture of health has been one of the key things that attracted me first to work for Johnson & Johnson. But secondly, it has been in place for over 30 plus years. Being here 25 years, you see the evolution of health and wellness within Johnson & Johnson.

Speaker 10: Our overall health and wellness philosophy and programs helps me personally get through a pretty stressful job that I have just by giving me permission to take care of myself.

Speaker 9: It's not about programs. It's really about creating and sustaining a culture of health. The program and services are really geared more towards supporting the culture.

Speaker 11: To create that environment, there's a lot of different things involved. So some of it is the built environment. So the building as you walk through, you see health, it feels like health. It may be in walking paths or the fitness centers.

Speaker 12: I like taking the classes at lunchtime. I just don't even think about it. I put it on my calendar, get up from my desk and come down. Every class is different. You have the opportunity to do cardio work or strength training. And when I leave, I feel energized and I feel more productive when I go back to my desk.

Speaker 13: It's not just about extrinsic motivation, actually giving people financial incentive. It's really about intrinsic motivation. I think an individual is much more likely to sustain good, healthy, positive behaviors if they're doing it because it's important to them.

Speaker 14: I think that people that get involved in the programs do them because they want to. And generally what I see is once people become involved, they want to do it more.

Speaker 15: We are, and we're fortunate enough to be, you know, the largest healthcare company in the world. And as such, we want to have the healthiest employees in the world.

Speaker 10: We say that this is part of our business, bringing out the best of our employees, having our employees fully present, fully engaged is a business issue. It's not just a nice to have.

Speaker 11: We're all leaders. We all have to take a responsibility for ourselves, our future. And so if you think of yourself as a leader, then you can influence those around you. And that's really the goal, is that it spreads out, it's a ripple effect.

Speaker 15: We feel incredibly confident that this is a key platform strategy for the sustainability of an organization over time.

Speaker 1: Finally, we'll visit San Antonio, Texas, where workers at USAA, a banking, investing, and insurance company servicing the military community, tell us how they've created cultures of health using health-promoting Surround Sound. Their program has been in place for over 10 years, and they too are winners of the C. Everett Koop Award.

Speaker 16: So Surround Sound is a concept we came up with fairly early on, and it really goes back to the idea about the built environment and changing culture. And so when you change culture, it's very important to have your upper leaders talk about the change, but unless employees can see things changing as they walk around, it's not as compelling an argument.

Speaker 17: Our new CEO is down in the fitness center every morning, and he's made that a part of his daily routine, and he's not going to change that, and I think that's where it starts. It starts from the top, and it's the shadow that he casts. We also have energy zones within the building, so maybe you're not able to take the time to get down to the fitness center, and these consist of different exercise equipment, ping-pong tables, anything just to kind of give the employee that time to step away, take a moment for themselves, and just be active.

Speaker 16: But as people walk around the building every day, the building is messaging to them about the kind of behaviors that we want them to do.

Speaker 18: I don't feel like I'm being forced to do anything. In fact, I know I'm not. It literally is my choice to engage in our healthy programs here at USA, and so I do.

Speaker 19: We know that if our employees are healthier, you know, they are more productive and reduce costs to the association.

Speaker 20: Employees are at work. They're not taking sick days. They're not having to go do things like take time off to go to the doctor's office. We have an on-site clinic here.

Speaker 17: If we can keep them active, you know, giving them that little extra boost to stay on the phone and work with those members, you know, the better they are, the better we serve our members and our mission.

Speaker 20: And that's really what we're all about, is serving our members and making sure that our employees are uniquely postured to do that. And we do that very well through our wellness culture.

Speaker 1: Promoting good health is a core value for these companies. Where business executives and middle managers lead by example, and the workers themselves are actively involved in shaping the programs so that they meet the needs of individuals and their families. We hope you find the Promoting Healthy Workplaces project insightful, and that these and other stories on our website inspire you to create your own cultures of health that lead to population health improvement and a healthy bottom line.