Guest Editor’s Note

This month’s issue of Employee Benefits & Wellness Excellence Essentials features a plethora of articles covering the spectrum of wellness and the new areas of health plans related to Defined Contributions. These articles will give you insight into best practices, and cutting edge ideas meant to help you gain knowledge in these areas and create momentum for your organization to become one of the top organizations in your industry.

Worksite Wellness: Does the concept matter today?

It is important to remember that wellness was conceived and designed as a multi-dimensional concept. As wellness is being applied to worksites today, we have allowed the multi-dimensional approach of wellness to be reduced to just one, a sole focus on physical health. Worksite wellness programs today are not really wellness programs at all, instead are employee health status management programs

Employee Benefits and Wellness Excellence May 2015 Advertisers

Are You Sabotaging Your Wellness Program Efforts?: Watch for these 5 clues

With improved incentives offered through the Affordable Care Act, employers are finding renewed motivation to develop and implement workplace wellness programs. According to Towers Watson, currently 50 percent of large companies have an articulated health and wellness strategy, and 94 percent of those who haven’t already developed a plan will do so in the next three years.

Relieve Workplace Stress: Breakaway from bad habits

Stress is a mental and often physical reaction to a perceived threat or change. Things are in a constant flow of change, there are always unexpected life changes, performance reviews, even stress from things that might be perceived as a good thing, like a promotion.

13 Office Mood-Boosters: Ideas that can help boost your workplace wellness program

Workplace morale is a huge factor in employee health. It is also a great predictor of company productivity. While there are a number of long-term company changes you can make to develop a positive company culture, we know these are easier said than done.

Protect Employees from the Unexpected: How aware are you about disability insurance?

As an HR professional in today’s health care landscape, it’s important to educate employees year-round about available health insurance benefits to make sure they’ll be well-prepared for the next enrollment period. May is Disability Insurance Awareness Month, which is the perfect time to make sure your workforce is fully educated on the financial and peace of mind advantages that disability insurance can help provide.

Defined Contribution Health Plan: It’s the future of small business health insurance

Pure defined contribution health plans are quickly becoming the future small business health insurance. In this article, we provide background on defined contribution health plans and outline the steps an employer would go through to set up a pure defined contribution plan.

Wellness In A Minute: Simple relaxation techniques at your desk

If you have a pounding heart, sweaty palms, tense stomach, or fast breathing, aching neck, racing mind, it’s time to take a break. They are signals of stress chemicals surging through your body. You can put a stop to them and protect your health. Stress is said to be responsible for 80% of doctors’ visits. The goal of relaxation is to release unnecessary muscle tension and quiet the mind and body. Breathing is our natural tension-releaser. We do it every minute of our life.

Stress Management - Lead The Way: Tackling stress from the top

It is norm for physical health issues to be discussed openly in most organizations,however, mental health remains very much a taboo topic. We’ve witnessed people from all parts of society speak up about mental health, except in the business world.