Andrew L McCart

Growing a Healthy Workforce Andrew L McCart

$5.7 Trillion is the projected amount the United States will spend on healthcare in 2026, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Growing at nearly 6% every year, employers, employees, and taxpayers will pay for these costs. Employers are in a unique and somewhat desperate position to make a difference in the health economics landscape. They are central to employees' lives and they have the motivation to avoid the financial pain. Growing a Healthy Workforce provides organizational leaders with a la carte options as well as an overall plan to reduce their growing health-related costs. Derived from actual employee interviews, employers can learn how employees feel about wellness initiatives (or, more commonly, lack of initiatives). This text is based on an in-depth case study featuring a robust and comprehensive scorecards that managers can use themselves. With the help of this book, managers can obtain the "wellness temperature" of their organization. They can then take specific and measurable steps to improve the health of their employees and the financial health of their organization. As a long-time professor of Organizational Leadership and a corporate trainer, the author is sensitive to the often authoritarian ways that health-related dictates are passed down from upper management. The suggestions in this book can allow employees to choose their level of engagement in wellness initiatives At the same time, the author suggests ways that leaders can nudge employees to make healthy choices as their default action. The Eight Dimensions of Organizational Wellness are: - Organizational Supports and Leadership - Tobacco Control - Healthy Nutrition - Chronic Disease Prevention / Management - Response to Heart Attack and Stroke - Physical Activity - Occupational Health and Safety - Mental Health