Workplace Wellness

By Billy Panagiotopoulos, Manager, Microsoft Systems Engineering

I am taking a little bit of a different direction for this article to talk about how MDT promotes wellness in the workplace, and how it benefits the employees, the organization, and all of our clients and partners. How does this benefit anyone beyond the direct employee, you ask?

Healthy employees are more productive and have fewer accidents due to being at a healthier weight, and not being tired, out of shape or stressed.
Healthy employees experience less absenteeism. Some employers have reduced their absenteeism by 40 percent with a good wellness program.
Healthy employees have lower health care costs, which can be very expensive for an employer, depending on how much of the cost of health insurance is absorbed by the employer.
Employers with a good wellness program usually have a good corporate culture which greatly improves their ability to attract and retain the best employees.

All of these benefits add up to our employees being available and able to deliver their very best to MDT and, ultimately, to you.

For those of you who have toured our headquarters in Farmington Hills, Michigan, you have likely seen our workout facility which is open to all staff at any time. The construction of the gym was a turning point for many of the MDT employees in regard to their wellness journey, and a starting point for others. It encouraged the staff to come together to help, motivate, and even compete with each other to reach goals. It also may have encouraged someone who was too shy or embarrassed to ask a coworker for advice on how to get started or change up their routine.

The result here has been a very high traffic in the gym at all times of the morning, afternoon, and evening with coworkers training together, showing each other different variations of workouts, and motivating each other to keep going when they want to quit. We also have friendly competitions like the most stairs climbed in 10 minutes on the Stairmaster, the quickest person to a mile on the treadmill, etc. Matt Baaki is still trying to beat my Stairmaster record. 😀

Knowing that statistically over 85% of your fitness goals depend on the food and drink you put in your body, several of the MDT family joined Weight Watchers (WW) this year to help with the tracking of both of these. It is quite amazing how naïve we can be of what we are putting in our body from a macro perspective (calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat, etc.). For example, did you know a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte – Grande size – has 50G of Carbs, 48G of Sugar, and would be 12 points on WW? Compare that to two cups of whole wheat pasta with a tablespoon of parmesan cheese and tomato sauce at 9 points and I know what I would pick. This is where the WW application comes in and really helps keep you on track. For those who are not familiar with WW, you are given a predefined number of ‘”points” a day to eat and drink based on your weight and your weight loss goals.

We also started a WW Zero-Point potluck which we will be doing on a regular basis which allowed staff (on WW or not) to come and taste each other’s recipes, and even take the recipe home to try for themselves. The more Zero-Point foods you eat, the faster you will hit your goal weight, as you will have more points left over at the end of the week. Mathematically, 3500 calories equals 1 pound, so if you were to reduce your intake by 500 calories a day, you would lose 1 pound a week (on average).

If you’re looking to create a wellness strategy for your Credit Union, I am happy to discuss with you other things MDT does to promote wellness that may also be right for your credit union. I can just about guarantee you have several employees who would jump at the opportunity to better themselves from a wellness perspective and especially with a new year now under way!

Wishing everyone a healthy, successful, and enjoyable 2020!

Source: https://www.corporatewellnessmagazine.com/article/workplace-wellness-really