5 Creative Ideas For Throwing An Office Holiday Party People Will Love

Holiday office parties can be maligned and/or dreaded for a multitude of perfectly understandable reasons. Sometimes the camaraderie is forced and employees resent the "gift" of socializing with people they wouldn’t want to otherwise. Sometimes the party’s so cheap it makes people feel unappreciated (I remember one workplace where we were "rewarded" for our efforts with an employee potluck from 12:00-1:00 p.m. in the lunchroom). And sometimes the big blowout comes off as tacky or soulless, especially when it involves party goers who have a lot to say, a lot to drink, and not much to eat.

Not all office holiday parties, however, are recipes for social disaster; in fact, many workers have happy memories of holiday parties, and not just the ones with the biggest budget or the longest mashed potato bar. Here are some creative ideas to help your next office party sparkle—and create real holiday warm and fuzzies among your colleagues:

1. ACTUALLY GIVE BACK

The alumni relations department at the University of Chicago throws lavish annual Christmas bashes, but interactive content editor Joy Olivia Miller’s favorite party took place at a different sort of venue: Her team went to the Ronald McDonald house and cooked together. "We spent the afternoon chatting and laughing while we made a huge pot of gumbo and sugar cookies for the families staying there," Miller recalled. "We brought some drinks and holiday tunes and kept it casual."

To Miller, actually helping meant more than just paying lip service to charity by asking employees to toss an old winter coat into a bin on the way into an opulent fete. "I think that one remains so special because it wasn't a huge to-do at a noisy place: It felt more like giving back because we actually gave our time, too." 

2. GO FOR THE BIG TENT APPROACH

Emily Graslie, chief curiosity correspondent at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, is a fan of the way the museum's holiday parties involve everyone, from staff to interns to volunteers. Plus, she says, "parties with research and collections scientists are a blast because it's a jovial time to share stories of expeditions and discoveries. The amount of history and knowledge contained in a party like that is a great reminder for why we work here in the first place. While I love the science, it's really about my colleagues, those people who pursued obscure passions into novel careers."

Source: 5 Creative Ideas For Throwing An Office Holiday Party People Will Love

"You know what everyone really wants for a holiday party? A day off! Give me $20; I'll get my own dinner and go home and spend it with my family."

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Certified Health Coach

Wellness Consultant

C2 Your Health LLC

WELCOA Faculty

Nominated Top 100 Health Promotion Professional  

You Are What You Eat...Even at Work

Companies trying to increase productivity should offer their employees more wellness programs, a new study finds.

Workers who ate healthful meals and exercised on a regular basis had better job performance and lower absenteeism, research from the Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO), Brigham Young University and the Center for Health Research at Healthways shows.

Employees who eat healthy all day long were 25 percent more likely to have higher job performance, the study found, while those who eat five or more servings of fruit and vegetables at least four times a week were 20 percent more likely to be more productive.

In addition, employees who exercise for at least 30minutes, three times a week, were 15 percent more likely to have higher job performance.

Overall, absenteeism was 27 percent lower for those workers who ate healthy and regularly exercised and that their job performance was 11 percent higher than their peers who were obese, the study found.

Overweight workers experienced lower job performance and higher absenteeism, compared to those employees who suffer from depression and other chronic diseases or conditions.

Source: You Are What You Eat...Even at Work 

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA
Certified Health Coach
Wellness Consultant
C2 Your Health LLC
WELCOA Faculty
Top 100 Health Promotion Professional nominee

121 Proven Employee Wellness Program Ideas For Your Office

Employee wellness programs have become a staple in many corporations as a way to attract top talent, keep them happy and productive, and decrease employee turnover. In fact, 80% of employees at companies with robust health and wellness programs feel engaged and cared for by their employers.

The key to having a successful corporate wellness program is encouraging overall wellbeing while still keeping it fun (see #57 for a perfect example). If you can’t get your team engaged then your wellness program ideas will quickly lose steam. So make your initiatives fun, try new ideas and see what your team values the most.

A lot of the wellness ideas listed here are ones we’ve used ourselves and have seen the benefits firsthand. Many others were contributed to us from awesome companies that know how to take care of their teams.

Below is a list of 121 employee wellness program ideas that you can easily implement at your office.

Source:  121 Proven Employee Wellness Program Ideas For Your Office

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA 
Certified Health Coach
Wellness Consultant
WELCOA Faculty
Nominated for Top 100 Health Promotion Specialists
C2 Your Health LLC

10 Best Practices to Staying Healthy at Work

Health care is a hot topic these days, and the personal health and wellness industry is booming. With health care reform, some companies are in a bind and are seriously looking at ways to promote wellness and preventive health measures for their employees.

If you are an employee, you know that staying healthy benefits you in many ways: fewer missed work days, greater productivity and less stress. Staying healthy is good for your pockets too, in the form of lower health care costs and health insurance premiums.

So when you’re going to the office and working in close quarters (ah, the cubicle life) every day, how can you stay healthy?

1. Wash your hands often - Hand-washing is the number one way you can prevent yourself from getting sick.

2. Keep your workspace clean - The average desk harbors hundreds of times more bacteria than a toilet seat — pretty gross, right? 

3. Drink more water - Staying well-hydrated is crucial to your productivity, energy levels and overall health. #stayhydrated

4. Keep hand sanitizer at your desk - Keep some handy at your desk, so it can be applied immediately and used in between hand washings when needed.

5. Avoid others who are not feeling well or exhibit symptoms of illness - Wash your hands after spending time at or near the work space of someone who is sick, sneezing or coughing.

6. Eat well including light, healthy lunches -Make sure to include some lean protein, salad or fresh veggies, and fresh fruit for lasting energy with no afternoon slump. #onesimplechange 

Read to rest: 10 best practices to staying healthy at work.

 Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA 
Certified Health Coach
Wellness Consultant 
WELCOA Faculty 
Top 100 Health Promotion Professional Nominee 
C2 Your Health LLC

Worksite Wellness - Stressed Out? 6 Tips To Reduce Work-Life Stress And Improve Your Health

Just turn on the news and you'll be hearing about the latest company down-sizing, right-sizing, slow down, re-organizing, down economy or as the financial advisers say - economic winter. What about you? All this bad news and at work you're burned out, exhausted mentally and physically. Have you asked yourself - "at what price?"

As your responsibilities grow, your shoulders become heavy with the burden of your life as it gets busier and more stressed day-by-day. With constant worry, increased responsibilities and more work - life becomes frantic. Our head becomes heavy with fatigue and dizziness; this is enough to not only make you feel tired but make you sick too. Really sick.

Stress can be different things to different people. For most of us stress is commonly caused by a feeling of too much work, too little time, financial loss, feeling out of control all of which contribute to thoughts which can make you feel depressed. Everyone suffers from stress at some point in his or her life, but the real challenge is to overpower and kill the stress developing inside you, and NOT to get killed by it.

Stress is connected to chronic ailments such as back pain, headaches and fatigue. Chronic diseases such as the flu, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, Crohn's Disease, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, GERD just to name a few are all impacted by long-term stress. The connection between your perception of stress and your body's ability to fight off disease is so strong some experts think stress can be "deadly". So you're right, your job is killing you and now we can prove it! Feel better?

Source: Worksite Wellness -Stressed Out? 6 Tips To Reduce Work-Life Stress And Improve Your Health

Your partner in health,

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA
Certified Health Coach
Wellness Consultant
WELCOA Faculty
C2 Your Health LLC  

Trumpcare: A new reality for U.S. healthcare & the workplace

Now that Donald Trump will soon be sworn into office as our next president, in the weeks and months ahead we can expect to learn more details about his proposed healthcare policies and how he plans to begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act.  

While most Americans are likely more familiar with his reality TV show than his proposed healthcare policies, and while his proposed policies are not as detailed as those that were listed on the Hillary Clinton campaign website, there’s more substance to Trumpcare than what was reflected in many of his short statements and one-liners in the debates. The policies that make up Trumpcare will require substantial changes to U.S. healthcare’s current legal and regulatory structure, and to U.S. tax law. 

Repeal of the ACA 

The first priority for Trump will be the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). However, this is not expected to happen overnight. The overhaul of the ACA, or the transition from the ACA to Trumpcare, however it is done, will clearly not be as simple as a reality TV show where Trump sits at a conference table, looks through each ACA rule and says “you’re fired.” Economists and lawmakers that have been deeply involved in U.S. healthcare policy have noted that repealing the ACA will be an extremely difficult task.  

Source: Trumpcare: A new reality for U.S. healthcare  

There are most likely hundreds if not thousands of opinions by now on what might happen to the ACA once the transition team for the new administration is established. No one really knows for sure what will happen, we may not know for sometime. What ever does happen will take time and surely is not an overnight happening. 

One thing is for sure, people are still sick, and going to get sicker. Smart companies will invest in their employees health. Experts agree those companies who don't will experience a disengaged workforce that will become as unstable as our economy. There's no way your company can afford this, no matter with Trumpcare has in store for us. 

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Wellness Consultant

Certified Health Coach
WELCOA Faculty

C2 Your Health LLC

Entrepreneurs Track Your Health – GPS for Success

It seems many of us live minute by minute. Planning for the week would be considered long range planning. So much information is constantly coming at us solving one problem after the other. It’s hard to discern what’s urgent from what’s important moving from one crisis to another causing chaos in our life making everything seem like a crisis.

You might want to stop for a second, take a breath then ask yourself “Is my health important to me and is it important enough to me to plan for?” I will never forget the day I was sitting across from a health coaching client when they said “No, my health is not a priority to me.” 

Really? You have got to be kidding! You plan for your health now or plan for your medical bills later. You either make your health a priority or your health will become a priority for you when you develop sickness that keeps you from enjoying your family, working on your job and takes your money. 

So what’s the plan? What are your health goals? Do you know? If you have not thought it over in a while now is a great time. The rules are the same when it comes to planning your vacation, your business and your health. The more time you spend planning the more fun and prosperity you’ll experience.  

Once you have a plan in place then to insure success you will need to keep track what’s important like your care GPS keeps you on track helping you reach your destination.

Most experts agree these are the top five most important influencers on your health and well-being:

1. The quality, quantity and frequency of your food choices.

2. How much and what type of activity you experience.

3. Sleep quality and duration.

4. How you manage family, financial and job stress.

5. Water quality and frequency of consumption.

Track your food and mood

A big influencer around food choices is how you are feeling. Food choices are made for many reasons besides hunger and these hide in your daily actions. When making food choices such a types of foods and when you are choosing to eat write it down.  Writing down what you eat in detail within 15 minutes of your meal increases your ability to stick with your daily food and calorie goals. Keep a mini pad with you so you won’t have any excuses after you eat. It’s important to bring eating into your awareness. Noticing patterns in foods choices and behaviors will help you make better decisions in the future.  Not sure what to eat? The USDA can help www.choosemyplate.gov.

Track your successes

Don’t limit yourself in how you measure success. The scale is only one way and maybe not the best because the weather and food additives will cause the scale to fluctuate. Monitor your clothing size, measure your waist, legs, and arms, and monitor how tight or loose your clothes feel.

Track of your food choices

How may fruits, vegetables and whole grains are you eating? Not enough check this out www.YourJuicePlus.com. Most importantly monitor how you feel and how your body is working. With better food choices comes energy, better sleep, improved digestion, lower blood pressure, weight loss and many other health benefits.

Track your goals

While your long-term goal may be to lose 10, 25, 50 or more pounds, you need small goals to keep your motivation up. Focus on improved healthy and vitality. Being skinny in your casket really isn’t what you are shooting for. You can’t control your weight but you can control your habits. Make goals you have control of such as eat 1 more fruit and veggie per day, exercise 30 minutes and go to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep. 

Track your motivation

To stay motivated you must have a clear reason to make healthy lifestyle changes. Is it to spend more time with your family, lower your medical bills and / or most importantly you deserve health and vitality? Whatever the reason, write it down and keep it in front of you. Your why will keep you motivated when you hit the bumps in the road of your healthy life journey.

So what’s your health GPS set for? When you look down the road what do you see in your future? If It’s not health then you still have time it’s never too late to get started down the road to better health.

Your partner in health,

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Certified Health Coach

Wellness Consultant 

WELCOA Faculty 

C2 Your Health LLC

(Track Your Health - GPS for Success first appeared in Small Biz Forward)

Corporate Wellness: Health Improves Companies Bottom Line

It seems every time we turn around there is a buzz about “corporate wellness.” I have heard it so many times that I wonder if people are becoming skeptical and leery of it being a marketing ploy. However, I know the importance of health in business as I practice a healthy lifestyle and know the positive impact on my bottom line.

I found that there are five key ways to improve the bottom line of a business with a corporate wellness program. First it begins with a wellness culture that starts at the top. As a corporate leader, you need to practice what you preach and live the lifestyle that you promote within your business.

I was talking with Dr. Roger Sahoury, author of Gladiator’s Guide to Corporate Health & Wealth, and he said, “It’s amazing to learn that 55% of workers identified a workplace wellness program as an instrument in improving their overall well-being. In fact it equates to $250 million in savings in lowered health costs and a 50% reduction in high blood pressure among employees.”

I found those numbers astonishing, but amazing at the same time because it proves that a corporate wellness program and culture can have not only a positive impact on the employee’s health but also on the bottom line of the company through tremendous cost savings.

You can read the rest of the article Forbes.com 

Corporate Wellness: How Health Improves the Bottom Line 

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA 
Certified Wellness Coach 
Wellness Consultant 
WELCOA Faculty
C2 Your Health LLC 

5 Ways the CDC Protects U.S.Businesses

Did you know the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched new work-site wellness tools, guidance and resources to protect your business health? 

Business Pulse: 5 Ways CDC Protects the Health of Your Business, 

Five ways CDC helps businesses:

1. Rapidly deploys disease detectives, life-saving vaccines and medicines and other support during a health emergency that could disrupt business continuity. 
2. Provides comprehensive travelers’ health information and advice to help protect U.S. citizens and businesses from diseases and other health risks abroad.
3. Advances the Global Health Security Agenda to accelerate progress toward a world safe from disease threats.
4. Protects America’s businesses, employees and their families by partnering with others to investigate food borne outbreaks and improve food safety. 
5. Provides businesses with flu-fighting strategies and resources to help prevent flu in the workplace.

The Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) provides a range of resources to help 

America’s employers keep their workers healthy, safe and secure.This month the Business Pulse highlights these challenges, as well as CDC solutions, and includes advice from CDC experts. 

Read the entire article: Five Ways the CDC Protects U.S. Businesses - cdcfoundation.org

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA 

Certified Health Coach

Wellness Consultant 

WELCOA Faculty 

C2 Your Health LLC

Work-Site & Corporate Wellness Distribution and Impact

In the past, the focus of wellness programs has been on managing “sick” employees.  We all know being sick costs money. So if you could make the sickness go away then less money would be spent on health care right?   

Here’s the big idea, “manage the disease” of those employees who are already sick and then hope that they will become healthy again. This type of thinking suggests once the sick became healthy, the company would realize their return on investment (ROI).  This seems like a logical solution.  However, history has demonstrated this may be logical, but is a bad idea.  Here’s what happens. The people who are already sick stayed sick, the healthy people become sick, and the company would not realize their ROI for three or more years down the road, if ever. 

To save money on health care costs the focus needs to be on keeping every employee healthy. That way the sick get better and the healthy stay healthy.

The long and the short of it is …

it costs less money to focus on wellness and everyone knows it.

Refer to chart below for distribution of savings demonstrated by wellness. It costs less money to provide wellness to all employees combined then provide disease and medical management to a few.

Demonstrated Savings of a Wellness Program

Management	ROI / person	Participation
Wellness	$3 - $24	100%
Disease	$7 - $10	10 – 30%
Disability	$7 -$10	10 – 15%
Medical	$2 - $3	5 -7%

In 2011, Insurance Associated conducted a study that found a small percentage of employees (20%) had developed the indicators of chronic disease and identified this group as “high risk”. The healthy or “low risk” were the remaining group (80%). When the focus is on the 20%, the 80% will begin to shift from low risk to the high risk population. 

Why is that?  “Chronic” means to happen over time. Many medical experts agree heart disease, cancer and the like are a 10- year process. This means it’s 10 years from the beginning of the disease until the first symptom.  In the case of heartdisease, it may begin with the first french fry (cholesterol build up) not the chest pain (heart attack). As you can imagine, it’s infinitely more costly and complicated to make someone unhealthy who is in the throes of chronic disease than it is someone who is in the early stages or pre-chronic disease state.

The new trend in wellness programming is to focus on the entire population. Those healthy, high risk, and chronic disease groups. In this way wellness programming reduces and sometimes freezes health care spending on medications, doctor visits, emergency room, and hospital admissions.  

How?  By early detection and identifying disease risk factors.  Such as pre-high blood pressure and pre-diabetes (high blood sugar).  When blood pressure and blood sugar are on the rise, both can be reduced with healthy lifestyle measures such as making healthy food choices and increased physical activity.

From: Prevention Benefits Healthy Employees Cost Less

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Wellness Consultant

Certified Health Coach

WELCOA Faculty 

C2 Your Health LLC

What’s Your Personal Health Plan Look Like?

Whether you have 1 employee or 5000 people work where you work it seems many of us live minute by minute. You and the people you work with may be planning their week at work but not planning for their health and happiness. Their family life is in crisis mode moving from one crisis to the next moving to the next urgent problem to the next chaos in their life. You too as a manager or business owner maybe doing much the same thing. What gets left in the dust is your health, the health of your family and the people you work with. Why? Because many people just don’t have a plan.

You might want to stop for a second, take a breath then ask yourself “Is my health important to me and is it important enough to me to plan for?” I will never forget the day I was sitting across from a health coaching client when they said “No, my health is not a priority to me.” Really? You have got to be kidding! You plan for your health now or plan for your medical bills later. You either make your health a priority or your health will become a priority for you when you develop sickness that keeps you from enjoying your family, working on your job and takes your money. 

So what’s the plan? What are your health goals? Do you know? If you have not thought it over in a while now is a great time. The rules are the same when it comes to planning your vacation, your business and your health. The more time you spend planning the more fun and prosperity you’ll experience.  

Once you have a plan in place then to insure success you will need to keep track what’s important like your care GPS keeps you on track helping you reach your destination.

Most experts agree these are the top five most important influencers on your health and well-being:

1. The quality, quality and frequency of your food choices.

2. How much and what type of activity you experience.

3. Sleep quality and duration.

4. How you manage family, financial and job stress.

5. Water quality and frequency of consumption.

Food Influencers: Does how you feel influence your food choices? Food choices are made for many reasons besides hunger and these hide in your daily actions. Sometimes it’s convenience and availability. Are healthy foods convenient and available in your company break room? Are there healthy restaurants close by? Can you bring your lunch to work? 

Other times your food choices are determined by your level of frustration, time pressures and stress. When this happens you are more likely to make unhealthy food choices. Plan to keep healthy foods like fruits, vegetables and nuts nearby in your desk, purse or car to sooth your mood.

It’s important to bring eating into your awareness. Noticing patterns in foods choices and behaviors will help you make better decisions in the future.  Not sure what to eat? The USDA can help www.choosemyplate.gov.

Track your successes: Don’t limit yourself in how you measure success. The scale is only one way and maybe not the best because the weather and food additives will cause the scale to fluctuate. Monitor your clothing size, measure your waist, legs, and arms, and monitor how tight or loose your clothes feel.

Keep track of your food choices too. How may fruits, vegetables and whole grains are you eating? Not enough check this out www.YourJuicePlus.com. Most importantly monitor how you feel and how your body is working. With better food choices comes energy, better sleep, improved digestion, lower blood pressure, weight loss and many other health benefits.

Track your goals:  While your long-term goal may be to lose 10, 25, 50 or more pounds, you need small goals to keep your motivation up. Focus on improved healthy and vitality. Being skinny in your casket really isn’t what you are shooting for. You can’t control your weight but you can control your habits. Make goals you have control of such as eat 1 more fruit and veggie per day, exercise 30 minutes and go to bed early enough to get 8 hours of sleep.

So what’s your plan to get and stay healthy? What’s the plan to support your employees to make healthier choices at work? When you look down the road what do you see in your future and your company’s future? If It’s not health then you still have time it’s never too late to get started down the road to better health.  

Need some help? Then ask a wellness consultant, certified health coach or health professional find a program that’s right for you and those you work with.  

Your partner in health, 

Cindy Cohen RN, BS BA

Certified Health Coach 

Wellness Consultant 

C2 Your Health LLC

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