Working with Inner Light Wellness to Fully Charge our Workforce,
by Gene Geiger
To help us constrain healthcare cost increases, we’ve had a robust wellness in program in place for years. Even though insurance costs have grown at ½ the national average over the last decade, we decided there was a larger need and opportunity. We are working with Tisha Bremner of Inner Light Wellness to develop a more comprehensive program, one that goes beyond to keeping people from getting sick.
Initially, we asked Tisha to coach Associates who, based on biometric testing, fell into the "high risk" category based on metabolic syndrome scoring. While it is no easy task to change behaviors developed over a lifetime, but we've seen noticeable results, roughly 25% showed improvement of overall scores.
Moreover, everyone loves working with Tisha, as evidenced by the 4.9 (out of 5) rating she received from those who have worked with her. One of our associates recently commented, “Tisha is a gem! I begrudgingly signed up for the health coaching sessions thinking that I would suck it up and bear it. She makes these sessions enjoyable and interactive. I never thought I’d look forward to sitting through a session about stress, or nutrition, or exercise. She makes it fun. She certainly makes us all feel empowered.”
As we considered our wellness program more closely, we identified 9 elements of personal well-being -- physical, mental/emotional, mindful, nutritional, financial, environmental, engaged/empowered, growth/development, safety -- that collectively impact job satisfaction and personal wellbeing. Tisha is helping us attack six of the nine, working with our Associates in Integrative Wellness educational classes, Biometric Consultations, Quality of Life Assessments, and One-on-One Health Coaching.
A long-established stretching program gets Associates out of their seats and moving three times each day. Tisha updated the program into new mind/body stretch routine that integrates physical with a stress-reducing mindful breathing component. She is also leading classes of breathing and meditation techniques to help our Associates mitigate stress on and off the job. One person described the benefit this way: “I’ve tried meditation before and have never really been successful, but I have been successful in getting to that place in the classes with Tisha. Mediation I feel is going to be a huge benefit moving forward – a lot of the time I just cannot seem to shut my mind down enough to really relax and now (also continuing classes) I am learning to do so.”
Tisha leads sessions to help our Associates understand how with a growth mindset they can live more healthy, productive lives (5 Habits of Healthy, Resilient People™) and helps our managers understand and support those who they lead (5 E’s of Mindful Leadership™). She has been a key resource for our Health and Wellness Team, a strong advocate to improve the nutritional value of food and drink offered in our Café, implementer of yoga, mindful meditation, and strength training classes, and a ball of energy who has infused wellness into our minds and culture.
In short, Tisha is our partner developing strategies and programs to Fully Charge our workforce. We are excited about the results we have seen to date and the potential ahead.