Anybody who has ever made an effort to be healthier knows that “health” is an elusive concept that isn’t easily achieved. Unhealthy habits and routines are hard to break.
Our consumer innovation team has been focused for the last two years on “making fun healthy.” The most successful “changes” are ones that fit naturally into a person’s life. They’re fun. They incorporate health into something people already enjoy doing. You can read more about our wellness philosophy here. Even in our own lives, we look for ways to take our normal “life-flow” and inject some health into it (like having walkstations on the floor, and having bikesharing to get from place to place downtown). I like to think about health-injected lifeflows as “micro-enablers” of good health.
But everyone’s lives have obstacles to health, too. For example, it tends to be both difficult and expensive to buy healthy food and prepare it. It is cheaper and easier to eat unhealthy food.
There are a lot of companies that have recognized the value of a healthier work force (Pitney Bowes is a great example), and are trying to make it easier for their employees to be healthy. Humana has an on-site health club that offers cheaper membership for people that go a lot (but not free – that’s another premise that’s worthy of a separate blog post). Our cafeteria always offers healthy choices, and sometimes they’re subsidized.
But in addition to enabling good health, lots of companies put up obstacles, too. I’m co-leading a “tweetchat” focused on workplace wellness, and it’s caused me to want to find a way to shine a light on the obstacles companies put up – and to tear them down.
A lot of corporate cultures frown on taking time out to do ANYTHING – even exercise, except maybe at lunch. A lot of corporate cultures emphasize clock-punching. Employees are expected to come in early, stay late and be on call at all times.
A lot of times the salad bar is one of the most expensive ways to eat in the cafeteria. That makes sense because fresh fruit and vegetables are expensive and perishable. But if you really want to encourage employees to eat better, you have to tip the scales financially in favor of veggies.
There are wellness programs, but they are almost always uninspired (payroll stuffers, anyone?) and difficult to find and use.
Wellness programs and incentives often aren’t connected to one another.
None of these problems are insurmountable. But they can aggregate into some pretty serious obstacles. I’m convinced that if companies got really serious about identifying and obliterating their micro-obstacles, they’d make giant strides in enabling – and even encouraging – a healthier and more engaged work force. The first step is identification. I’ve thought of a few things that I consider to be micro-obstacles to workplace wellness. What did I miss? What are the obstacles you’ve seen in your own work force? And what innovative things have you seen that overcome the obstacles? What would you like to see?
Photo by sokisoy
[Editor's note: The concept of "Micro-Obstacles" will be one of the topics on this month's CoHealth tweetchat on Wednesday, February 17th. CoHealth is a "workplace wellness cooperative" focused on health at work.]
Popularity: 24% [?]
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
image via Amazon.com
Ladies and gentlemen, in case you haven’t noticed, I will be the first to alert you to a startling and easy-to-recognize fact: Technology is taking over. While workout-related videos have been around for a long, long time (think back to the days of Beta, VHS and probably even laser disc), they are exploding onto the scene even more today and are more accessible and more useable than ever before. With Netflix, Blockbuster Video and yes, even the Internet, we can now exercise to a whole slew of celebrities, or not, at the push of a button without even leaving our home. This, my friends, can be great, great news.
The only question that actually remains is this: Do workout videos actually work? Can they adequately replace the experience, the pressure and the commitment of going into the gym? The answer is yes. There are plenty of workout videos, DVDs and programs that can get your heartbeat racing, your sweat pouring and your muscles pumping. You can get the results you desire at home, and you can do it for a lot cheaper than a gym membership. Here are some of our favorites:
- Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred – She scares the heck out of you on The Biggest Loser. Why wouldn’t she scare the heck out of you in your own living room? This gets you moving, keeps you moving and leaves you sore.
- Women’s Health Perfect Body Workout with Amy Dixon – As the title suggests, this one is more suited to women. But all you guys out there, try it with 10-pound dumbbells and see how you feel the next day. Ouch.
- Women’s Health Ultimate Fat Burn! – Amy Dixon brings it back in this older, but still amazing workout DVD. If you want to sweat, a lot, this just might be your ticket.
- Billy Blanks Tae Bo Amped – If you want variety, this is your ticket to an amazing workout that combines kickboxing, aerobics and yes, Tae Kwon Do, to keep you guessing, sweating and feeling downright exhausted.
- YogaFit Ultra – Instant peace, instant calm and a great flow from workout to workout.
There you have it! Something for just about everyone. The best thing is these DVDs are incredibly inexpensive, incredibly accessible and designed to work for just about everyone at just about every fitness level, whether you are just starting out or are a well-toned workout machine.
Lets make 2010 the healthiest year yet. Even if you do belong to a gym, these workout DVDs are a perfect way to sneak in a great workout wherever you might find yourself.
Popularity: 10% [?]
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
Healthy Game Idea Contest
As a big gaming enthusiast and hobbyist game designer, I was excited to learn that I would be managing the Humana Games for Health “InsertCoin” game idea competition. That project title is a lot to swallow! The reality is easier. Basically, our goal was to create a contest that would inform gamers and students about our games for health initiative and get them to think about wellness and exercise in the context of digital entertainment. I should also mention that the top three winners would receive cash prizes and a chance to have their idea prototyped for commercialization.
Quick background story on the contest name, “InsertCoin.” The team and I love 8-bit gaming and classic arcades. From that, we took a combination of words to come up with the contest name. The word “insert” came from inserting a coin or token into an arcade machine, which represents inserting or submitting your idea. “Coin” is receiving cash or prize money, in this case some major coinage for the winning ideas.
[Insert sound of record being stopped.] And now back to the story. To promote the contest, we leveraged our
- InsertCoin Video Shoot
very own Naimul Huq to create three distinct and creative promotional videos. The common thread running through all of the videos was classic 8-bit gaming. My favorite piece was “Link, The Later Years,” in which Link from Zelda goes to work for corporate America. This particular video was picked up by many popular blogging and gaming sites, including joystiq.com and ign.com’s “Best of the Web,” to name a few. You should check ‘em out.
The judges and I were all very impressed with the caliber of concepts that were submitted to the contest. Ben Sawyer, co-founder of Games for Health Project, was our guest judge for the contest. He put it clearly when he said, “The winners are representative of three major themes that came out among all the entrants. Those were: we want some dance games that aren’t as metaphorical, we want some active games with more storyline, and we want games that we can take out into the world not just in our living room.”
Without further ado, here are the winners of the InsertCoin contest. Shelly Warmuth from Green Bay, Wis., won first place with her concept called “Dance Class,” where players are taught to dance by virtual dance instructors. John Green from Brooklyn, N.Y., placed second with his concept “Camp Awesome,” a summer camp simulator where players get the full action-packed experience of a summer camp with all the food and fun. Finally, Kevin Ray from Salt Lake City placed third with his “Jungle Mayhem” concept of social-based gaming meets activity on consoles. Again, congrats to our winners and all those who took the time to enter the contest. Internally, we are now bringing these concepts to our meetings and identifying which of these we might be able to prototype for future products.
About Humana Games for Health
Video games can be more than just fun and entertaining – they can serve as a catalyst to healthier lifestyles. The HG4H team – part of Humana’s Innovation Center – creates ways for people of all ages to reach new levels of health and well-being through the use of game technology. The games can be used to combat obesity, provide entertaining physical therapy and battle age-related physical and mental decline. http://www.humanagames.com/
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DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
A team from Humana’s Innovation Center recently faced a cold morning to participate in building a home through Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity is a great organization. They help people get their lives on track in an effective and sustainable way. There is nothing quite like being a homeowner — and knowing you earned it. Habitat owners aren’t just given homes. They pay for half of them (on an interest-free mortgage), while the other half is typically paid for through donations. The building costs are defrayed because the homes are built by volunteers. The homeowners build right alongside the volunteers. Neighbors helping neighbors.
We met at 8:30 a.m. at the Habitat construction site and watched a short video about the Habitat effort in Louisville. They’ve built more than 322 houses since they started a few years ago. We were to work on house number 323, a refurbishment project, owned by a charming young lady. We caravan-ed to the site, sandwiched between two homes, and started putting up gleaming new vinyl siding.
This isn’t the first time I’ve done Habitat for Humanity. I’ve built homes in a few countries in a lot of different climates, from the boiling, humid summer of India to the brisk winter chill of North Carolina. But this was probably the coldest Habitat build I’ve ever been on. No matter the weather, I invariably have fun and draw closer to the people I’m with. There is something about demanding, repetitive labor that opens up personal histories and fosters camaraderie. That, coupled with the knowledge that our actions are making a direct and immediate impact on the people we’re trying to help, frame the experience in satisfaction. I feel like I got to know my team members better while we were two stories up on scaffolding, hammering siding to the wall.
Volunteering with Habitat is also a very healthy activity. It’s good for your emotional and physical health. In Honduras, I spent a week in a pit, trying to cut through rocks with a glorified railroad spike. I came out of that pit with abs. And I felt good about what I had done — the people we were helping now had a foundation for their new home. But more important than my personal satisfaction was the fact that I left the trip with lifelong friends who I still keep in touch with on a regular basis. We all worked together to accomplish something and were better for it. That’s what team building should be.
Photo by DannyC
Popularity: 7% [?]
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
A few months ago, I was lucky enough to be able to write a guest post on Amber Naslund’s Altitude Branding blog that was all about how we think about social media at Humana. At the time that post was written, our social media “un-committee” was about four months old. Now that we’re approaching our collective first birthday, I wanted to revisit the Altitude post, and share a bit more about how we think about social media in our Fortune 100 enterprise. This is the second of three posts on the subject.
The Town Square is a concept that says every department in the company can get a “lot” on the Town Square, and build whatever kind of building suits their business needs best. It’s the place for Humana to understand, explore and use social media to take its business forward. It’s not about tools or technology; it’s about a new model for interaction and collaboration. It’s for our customers, yes, but not JUST our customers. It also applies to the way we work with doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, employers, the government and – yes – each other.
The Town Square Model
We figured that if we were going to be working in social media, we needed to apply social media principles to the way we worked. And that means that we weren’t going to be a governance committee or an approval board. How on earth could you have a social media governance committee (oxymoron alert!)?
There’s only one rule in the Town Square . . . but it goes with six fundamental principles. The rule is: We share. We share our ideas and plans. We share what’s worked and what hasn’t. We share vendor recommendations. We share reference materials and resources. The fundamentals are important too, although pretty obvious:
- Authenticity – We’re honest, accurate and thorough. We’re not marketing; we’re having a conversation. We don’t keep secrets or spin the truth. We’re people, too.
- Active Listening – We’re taking the time to stop talking and just listen. We want to hear what you have to say – even if it’s negative. When we enter a new space, we’ll listen first before we start talking. We’ll listen for how we can make your life better or easier. We are changing the way we work based on your needs.
- Going Where They Are – People go to the places and do the things they know, trust and enjoy. You don’t have to come to us; we’ll come to you. If it’s necessary for you to come to us, we’ll build you a bridge.
- Personal Voice – We will interact with you as people, not as a corporation. I am accountable to you as a person, not as a corporation. We will use language that you can understand – not just what’s convenient for us.
- Learning through Action – Nobody has found the “magic bullet” in enterprise social media. We will try new things. We realize that we will make mistakes and do things incorrectly, but we will learn as we go. We’ll be honest about what we’ve learned, and celebrate our smart failures. We’ll get better every time we try.
- Sharing/Open Source – We are adopting a culture of sharing, both inside and outside of Humana. If we can’t share our successes and failures, we limit our ability to learn. We don’t have to control, but we do have to communicate. We will create a culture that emphasizes and values collaboration and sharing.
So now that we had a framework, we needed someone to start building around the square. I mentioned before that there were a whole lot of people who’d begun to work in the space. Our Perfect Service Innovation team was the first part of the company to work with an internal wiki for knowledge sharing. Our Web/New Media team has launched a series of videos (over two million views on YouTube – pretty amazing!) And another part of our marketing organization had launched a real social network for pre-retirees. Our HR team is aggressively using LinkedIn and Facebook for recruitment. And our Humana Military subsidiary has just started using Facebook to connect with their beneficiaries.
Continuing the Town Square metaphor, we needed to find a way to bring together the right people from around our business to carry the learning forward – we call it the “Chamber of Commerce.” A group of 17 people – none above the director level – from 14 different departments of the company. They are all either currently engaged in some form of social media or preparing to be.
Tomorrow: The social media “Chamber of Commerce” – our official unofficial un-committee.
Photo by abeeeer
Popularity: 9% [?]
DISCLAIMER ALERT: The ideas expressed in this post came out of my own head, were researched by my own eyes and were expressed by my own hands. They are not intended to serve as medical advice in any way, shape or form. And they do not reflect the views of Humana Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. I take full responsibility if you think this post is awesome or not awesome.
