In a  recent survey of employees at various organizations, workers said that they could do more to eat better and be more active at work, and that employers could do more to increase health and wellness in the workplace.

Human resource experts also say that if companies provide the resources for their employees to eat better and keep active, it will not only reduce healthcare spending for employers and employees, but it will boost productivity as well.

A report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has shown that about 75 percent of adults will be overweight by 2015.  The Center for Disease Control has found that obese employees are absent from work almost most two times more often than other workers, costing companies about $4 billion each year in lost productivity.

Another survey found that about 20 percent of organizations had some kind of weight management program.  But these were for the most part in the health and hospitality area and in places that employed more than 500 people.  Because being overweight can increase the risk of such conditions as heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke and cancer, these weight management programs can help with preventing these diseases and keeping down healthcare costs.
More than two-thirds of organizations offer some type of wellness program, up almost six percent from four years ago.  Almost three-fourths of organizations with 500 or more employees had some type of wellness program.  Of these, government organizations had the highest percentage at more than 80 percent, and service groups had the smallest, at just a little over 60 percent.

More than half of these wellness programs offered flu shots, and almost one-third gave health risk assessments and offered stop-smoking classes.  Almost one-third offered yearly physicals, and one-tenth had in-house medical staff.

What types of work habits contributed to weight gain?  The survey found that almost three-fourths of workers had a junk-food snack at least once a week, while almost one-third had a junk-food snack three times a week.  More than one-third of the workers said they had to stay at their desks, reducing physical activity.  Stress from work also led to bad eating habits.

But, on the other hand, two-thirds of employees said they would use a gym, nutrition education and weight management classes if they were available at work.

Exercise great judgment and contact  C.R. Fletcher Associates, Inc. when you need sales/marketing, HR, accounting/finance, IT, administrative/clerical, and warehouse workers for your Syracuse-area firm, we’ll find you skilled and reliable personnel for short-, long-term and direct-hire opportunities. Contact us today.

Do you ever feel that work would be pretty dandy if it weren’t for, well….your co-workers?

They can be so annoying at times. The gum popping. The Facebook surfing. The messy desks. The gossip. The backstabbing.

If you do sometimes wish your co-workers would just stay home more often than not, you’re not alone. A survey in June found that employees have many minor complaint about colleagues. Here are a few (of course, these are how other people are annoying; we’re never annoying!)

The biggest annoyance stated by those surveyed were colleagues who are poor at time management, resulting in missed deadlines and/or putting others behind in their own tasks.

Employees also were put out by their colleagues who took too many sick days and who took too long at lunch or on breaks. Colleagues who didn’t know a deadline if it jumped up and pulled their hair also had their co-workers pulling their own hair in frustration, as did too-long meetings (especially when they had no agenda) or did not begin or end on time. Co-workers who passed the time checking their Smartphones or other personal electronic devices during the meeting also came up in the top pet peeves lists.

Office gossip also was a big annoyance.

That said, your colleagues also are talking behind your back about how annoying you are when you:

• are loud,
• talk about politics,
• send e-mail or visit your favorite Web sites for personal concerns during company time, and
• use electronic devices at inappropriate times.

E-mail also is a bit of a bugaboo among workers. Those surveyed said chain and joke e-mails should go the way of the Dodo. Employees who don’t reply to an e-mail related to work or a project, or who send an e-mail with a question that had been answered in previous e-mail also deserved to spend time in Dante’s first circle of hell.

Your takeaway? Set clear guidelines and policies regarding Internet and personal electronic devices at work. You also should set firm rules about communal area and desk cleanliness, as well as length of morning, afternoon and lunch breaks. Make your rules reasonable for your company culture, make them easily accessible and known to your employees, and be consistent in your enforcement.

When you need reliable, conscientious workers for your Syracuse-area firm, contact C.R. Fletcher Associates, Inc. We can find you skilled employees for temporary, temp-to-hire or direct-hire assignments. We look forward to hearing from you!

If you have employees who telecommute “to” work, they’re likely less stressed and enjoy their jobs more than people doing similar work at your firm on site.

Such is the finding of a recent University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) study. Researchers compared those workers who worked from home at least three days a week to employees who worked in the “traditional” manner at a company’s site. The study found that, while lax workplace communication often is cited as a big disadvantage to telecommuting, study participants reported that this issue was minor. In fact, telecommuters said they had the same timely access to important work information as their office-based colleagues.

Researchers concluded that telecommuting shielded workers from the more stressful and distracting parts of the workplace including interruptions, long and useless meetings, information overload, and — not surprisingly — office politics.

Your takeaway? Researchers recommended that companies look into starting or expanding telecommuting programs. If such remote working arrangements truly aren’t feasible at your firm, the researchers suggested that employers “identify and address the problematic and unsatisfying issues inherent in collocated work environments.”

Employers at the least should consider:

• Limiting the number of mass e-mails
• Cutting back on meetings
• “Creating a supportive climate where employees can register concerns without fear of retaliation”
• Streamlining your communication efforts by creating a “repository of information” accessible to employees at any time.
• Creating times and places where office-based employees may work uninterrupted.
• Assisting employees to “disconnect” themselves from work communication (e-mail, text messages, etc.) when the work day is done.

C.R. Fletcher and Associates, Inc. can alleviate your stress by sourcing and placing skilled and reliable employees for your Syracuse-area company. Contact us today so that we may hear more about how our temporary, temp-to-hire, and direct-hire placement services can help take a lot of the stress out of ensuring your workforce is of the caliber you require. We look forward to hearing from you.