Employer Stories

Prioritizing Workplace Well-being to Transform Your Business

A walk isn’t just good for your body—it’s a simple, powerful way to care for your heart and mind. Physical activity, like walking, reduces stress, boosts mood, and promotes overall well-being.

The American Heart Association champions the importance of physical activity in communities across the country, including in the workplace. The American Heart Association’s Well-being Works Better initiative is a curated solution for fostering and evolving a healthy work culture, while empowering employees to manage physical and mental health. Resources and tools focus on physical and mental health, burnout prevention and financial well-being, with the goal of enabling employers to positively impact the health outcomes of all their employees.

Read on to find out how one employer, Northwell Health, got their employees moving.

When Northwell Health started Go for the Gold Paris, a movement challenge to coincide with the 2024 Paris Olympics, more than 20,000 members of their workforce signed up.

Some employees were hesitant though. One employee wasn’t active and doubted she’d get the steps in. With encouragement from her teammates and support from the organization, the employee not only joined the challenge, she improved her biomarkers and lost 20 pounds — plus her team won the challenge and each of the five team members won a $5,000 prize.

In total, 7 billion steps were taken and more than 3.5 million miles were walked during the six-week challenge. The success aligns with Northwell Health’s goal to improve the health and well-being of their employees and their families.

“We want our people to say, ‘I’m healthier because I work at Northwell,’” said Lauren Dolinski-Walls, senior director of TeamWell at Northwell Health, New York’s largest private employer and health care provider, with 21 hospitals, more than 900 outpatient facilities and 90,000 employees.

This year’s movement challenge, Journey Through Africa, enlisted 22,000 team members with reports of weight loss, stress reduction, better sleep and more social connections.

The organization offers their employees more than 100 well-being programs, including wellness workshops, onsite fitness and wellness spaces, well-being apps, biometric screenings, mindfulness and transcendental meditation, as well as Employee and Family Assistance Programs for a variety of professional and personal needs.

Northwell Health received a platinum badge on the American Heart Association’s Well-being Works Better Scorecard, a free, comprehensive assessment of a company’s approach to well-being. It measures organizational and operational policies, leadership support, programs, interventions, and engagement.

The Scorecard offers compares your organization to other assessment takers, as well as those in your industry, workforce size and revenue range. Companies can score completer, bronze, silver, gold or platinum. Visit the Well-being Works Better website for tools and resources to address and improve your workforce’s health.

“Supporting the health and well-being of employees isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s a smart business strategy,” said Dr. Stacey Rosen, volunteer president of the American Heart Association and executive director of the Katz Institute for Women’s Health at Northwell Health. “Focusing on well-being at work benefits employees and the organizations they power. A healthy workforce drives a healthy business.”

Platinum-level organizations, like Northwell, score at the top of the scorecard.

“When you put theory into action and the AHA says, ‘you’re on the right track,’ that solidifies it for us,” Dolinski-Walls said.

Theory, action, measurement

Northwell conducts an annual employee survey to determine its employees’ needs. Listening is key to the success of the well-being program, Dolinski-Walls said. Survey results consistently reveal that mental health is a primary concern.

Each year, something new comes to light. Recently, employees voiced the need for caregiver support. To address this request, Northwell created a caregiver BERG, or Business Employer Resource Group, to offer these employees support and resources.

Support the caregivers in your workforce

With about 70 percent of the Northwell workforce enrolled in a well-being program, engagement is high. That’s significantly higher than the average of 23 percent enrolled in mental health programs in U.S. workplaces.

Northwell’s TeamWell program addresses seven pillars of health:

Physical
Emotional
Financial
Social
Spiritual
Environmental
Intellectual

“When we think about well-being, we think about it holistically,” said Dolinski-Walls. “All of these different aspects of health and well-being play into each other. These are also interests of our teams and align with many of our resources.”

Good health for all is good business

Each year, U.S. employers lose approximately four workdays per employee to absenteeism, costing them $3,600 per hourly employee and $2,650 per salaried employee.

Given that poor health leads to higher healthcare costs and lost productivity, employers have a vested interest in offering benefits, policies and programs that promote a culture of health and well-being for all employees. Studies show improvements in employee health, productivity and retention when organizations embrace and address well-being.

Well-being Works Better draws from the American Heart Association’s 100+ years of health and well-being expertise, offering free resources — both for your workforce and company leadership.

Share your story with the American Heart Association and tell us how Well-being Works Better tools and resources have helped your workplace health strategies.