Health in the Workplace

Exercise 1 September 8, 2010 Though business has been steadily declining over the past five years, it still seems to have customers who remain loyal. This is a great advantage to the caf©. I think it is great that my grandfather has created such a home-like caf©, including knowing customers' names.

I think the caf©'s biggest threat is the absence of information technology. The entire business is ran from memory and manual entry, which can easily cause unknown mistakes and wrong information. I will make a start by training the employees so everyone is doing their Jobs based on guidelines and structure.It is very important that we get a computer system set up to properly store and manage data and information. It is important that employees are trained to use the new system effectively and efficiently for it to be successful. It is also very important that we work as a team to make this transition smooth and comfortable for everyone, including customers.

I want employees to give me input whenever possible. They are the ones who interact with the costumers and deal with the process of serving the customers.Employees may have more of a sense of what needs to be changed or improved. I also want to hear feedback from customers through comment cards. I also plan to keep customers informed with changes that are occurring or will occur in the future so they can feel like they are apart of the process.

We will have a "community wall" where we post all news of the caf©, and customers can post community news from outside the caf©. I also want to continue close relationships with the customers as my grandfather did. It will be very hard to compete will a business such as Starbucks.Their atmosphere is more high class with Jazz music, fancy interior and pricey products. I want to keep an atmosphere where customers aren't uncomfortable to hang out, talk, laugh, and socialize. I also want our products to be priced low and affordable.

So, if someone wants a cup of coffee, they feel comfortable staying as long as they would like and can afford to have refills. We will also host events such as karaoke nights, cards, raffles, etc. I want to have an environment that families can enjoy and have fun, whereas Starbucks is a place for adults to enjoy coffee, read, and work.Our friendly environment, hosted events, low prices, and close relationships with ustomers will give us a competitive advantage over Starbucks. productivity, lowered absenteeism and fewer on-the-Job accidents.

These strong internal and external influences will affect the wellness market by giving credence to the legal issues in article and by stressing the Judicious use of incentives and disincentives. The US Dept. of Health and Human Services reported that a Johnson and Johnson's wellness program yielded an estimated savings of at least $1. million through decreased medical costs, reduced sick leave, and increased productivity; city mployees insured by the City of Mesa, Arizona revealed a significantly greater decrease in health care costs of employees who participated in a mobile worksite health promotion program, as opposed to employees not participating. Health care costs decreased 16%, resulting in a $3. 6 savings for every dollar spent on health promotion services; and (c) the return on investment enjoyed by five large companies, as a result of their health promotion and disease prevention activities, ranged from $2.

5 to $6. 15 per employee. Despite these convincing numbers, workplace wellness rograms ought to be cautious in their use of rewards and punishments for motivating employees to lead healthier lifestyles. There is good reason for the Department of Labor's recently issued regulatory guidelines rejecting the use of incentives and disincentives that make health insurance more expensive for unhealthy workers than for their colleagues.

For example, smoking (as well as drug and alcohol) addiction is due to the influence of a powerful complex of biological and psychological factors.For many people, counseling (and medications) is required, and numerous relapses are common. Instead of simply punishing smoking, those addicted ought to be rewarded initially for participating in counseling to deal with the physical and psychological causes of their addictions. For employees whose health would improve if the curtailed their use of alcoholic beverages and recreational drugs, the same strategy should be offered, assuming they are not breaking company policies.Similarly, certain compulsions, such as the drive to persistently overeat, are driven by powerful physiological, mental and emotional influences. As with addictions, weight loss typically requires counseling, family/peer upport, and even medications or other medical procedures (e.

g. , gastric bypass or band). Our culture makes matters worse by promoting unhealthy diets through commercials and fast-food companies selling high-carb and high-fat foods and beverages. Time and money constraints are also a factor in the effectiveness of these programs.

Many employees have work, family and other demands that consume their time and make lifestyle change difficult. What they need is help with time management and developing wellness plans that take their busy schedules into ccount. Some have serious money problems, which prevent them from buying more healthy foods, a gym membership, prescribed medications, diagnostic tests, etc. Wellness programs, therefore, ought to focus on providing the risk assessment, feedback and counseling necessary to deal with the emotional, attitudinal and resource blocks that prevent employees from making positive changes.

When discussing health related issues in the workplace, it is essential to include pregnancy and how this issue affects women, their families and their careers. Sadly, even hough the United States is a developed country, we're still one of the few countries in the entire world that does not federally mandate paid maternity leave. Under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, U. S.

workers are allowed to take up to 12 weeks leave for to tend to family or medical needs, but their absence is unpaid States are beginning to take more of an initiative on this front, human-resources experts say.For example, California has passed legislation for paid family leave called the State Disability Insurance Program, which entitles employees a maximum f six weeks of partial pay per year to care for a newborn or other family matters. While U. S. employers are moving in the way of providing more family-friendly workplace policies, many currently provide alternative forms of payment through their short-term disability programs.

For example, having a baby can be considered a qualifying condition for getting paid disability leave. On Feb. 1, Sen.Chris Dodd (Conneticut), who authored the Family and Medical Leave Act, proposed new legislation that would expand the act by providing at least six weeks of paid leave for workers. Besides our nation's families, our nation's economy, its production, and its competitiveness are threatened when families are forced to choose between the Job they need and the family they love," Dodd said in a statement announcing the legislation.

"FMLA was a milestone in our nation's dialogue, acknowledging that families, workforce production and competitiveness are not mutually exclusive. The United States also lags behind in protecting working women's right to breastfeed. At least 107 countries grant women the right to breastfeed, and in 73 of those countries, he breaks are paid, the study found. The United States does not have any protections in place for women who want to breastfeed. Thus terrible situation puts thousands of women in the difficult position of choosing career over family or vice versa when there are many reasons for them to have both.In addition, employers may lose a valuable resource in a woman who needs to take time off to care for her family or raise children and cannot return, or must return and will do so unhappily and unproductively.

Just as working women may stress over Juggling their families nd their careers, others stress over their work in general. As a result, employees may experience anxiety that could eventually affect their work performance causing more stress. This vicious cycle could be broken if employers would not only take care of the employee's physical health, but mental health as well.Nearly everyone agrees that Job stress results from the interaction of the worker and the conditions of work.

Views differ, however, on the importance of worker characteristics versus working conditions as the primary cause of Job stress. These differing viewpoints are mportant because they suggest different ways to prevent stress at work. According to one school of thought, differences in individual characteristics such as personality and coping style are most important in predicting whether certain Job conditions will result in stress in other words, what is stressful for one person may not be a problem for someone else.This viewpoint leads to prevention strategies that focus on workers in ways to help them cope with demanding Job conditions. Although the importance of individual differences cannot be ignored, scientific evidence suggests hat certain working conditions are stressful to most people (for example, excessive workload demands and conflicting expectations).

Such evidence argues for a greater emphasis on working conditions as the key source of Job stress, and for Job redesign as a primary prevention strategy.The design of tasks (heavy workload, infrequent rest breaks, long work hours and shiftwork), management style (lack of participation by workers in decision-making), interpersonal relationships, work roles (conflicting or uncertain Job expectations), career concerns and environmental conditions such as rowding, noise, air pollution, or ergonomic problems are all factors in employee stress levels. Luckily, these are all issues that an employer could potentially control and improve.Health is a factor in everyone's life, and even more so in the workplace. Health insurance, wellness programs, family and medical leave (especially where pregnant women are concerned) and mental health are all important issues to be considered when considering maximum employee productivity and workplace satisfaction.

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