While the winter season has been in full swing, the HR teams at Antlers of Vail and Colorado Mountain Express (CME) have been hard at work expanding opportunities for employee wellness. Both took part in a 12-week worksite wellness challenge organized by Eagle County Public Health and the Vail Valley Partnership in an effort to jumpstart local businesses’ employee wellness offerings. The challenge fits the mission of the Vail Valley Partnership’s Health & Wellness Initiative to provide local educational services and programming for the business community, as well as establish regional cooperation amongst all stakeholder groups in the valley. Eagle County Public Health surveyed employees before the challenge to find out their health needs and goals and what kind of support they wanted from their employers. Employers got valuable feedback from their employees and wellness program suggestions from Eagle County Public Health so they could tailor programs to their own needs and resources. At the end of the 12 weeks, employees were surveyed again to determine if the challenge was a success. The final prize, box seats to a Nuggets game provided by the Vail Valley Partnership, was awarded to CME after a random drawing.
The challenge was designed so that employers had the flexibility to do activities that addressed their employees’ needs. Antlers focused on healthy eating and changing everyday bad habits by hosting a healthy recipe potluck for their entire staff to demonstrate that eating healthy doesn’t have to taste bad. They also worked on providing better access to nutritional information and mental health information to Spanish-speaking staff. CME sent out weekly wellness emails that offered inspiration and resources around exercise, improved fitness, eating healthier, weight loss, and stress reduction. They brought in a physical therapist to teach employees the importance of movement and how to counteract the effects of prolonged sitting with stretching and inexpensive props. CME’s Reservations Department started a wellness movement intended to help team members avoid the easy temptation of a fast food lunch. Anyone eating fast food was subject to a “fine” of $1 to be donated to a good cause.
In surveys conducted at the end of the challenge both Antlers and CME saw significant increases in the number of employees reporting that their employer cares about their health and offers opportunities, resources, and encouragement for healthy eating and exercise. While some employees feel that wellness is a personal issue, most were glad their employers had taken an interest in their wellbeing. 60% of the employees surveyed agreed that their health can be worked on at the workplace and 82% agreed that it is important to have a culture of wellness at work. “I was really excited that my employer let us take part in this!” one participant commented. Another replied “Thank you for doing this – I think it was very valuable”. Employers also had good things to say about the challenge. A representative from CME reported “I think this was a wonderful challenge and I received very positive feedback from employees…Thank you for offering us such a great opportunity and bringing such an important topic to light in our company!”.
Armed with constructive employee feedback and some encouraging results, both employers plan to continue to build on their wellness offerings. This shows that workplaces can be more than just places you work.
Eagle County Public Health works to protect, link, and empower the community to prevent disease and strive for healthy behaviors by offering a number of community programs and services and collaborating with local organizations to address community health needs.