Odds are you’ve heard the hype about Apple’s latest gadget, the Apple Watch. With its release originally scheduled for this week, we thought we’d give you some insight into how the Apple Watch compares to regular wearable fitness trackers when it comes to employee wellness.

Early wearers have provided mixed reviews about the infamous Apple Watch. Does it really stack up as a benefit for the average employee? Take a look at our pre-release analysis.

Financial wellness is an aspect of employee wellness that’s often forgotten. It’s important that employees feel healthy financially for many of the same reasons they should feel healthy physically.

To get started, let’s take a look at what financial wellness means. For an employee, financial wellness includes:

• Minimal feelings of financial stress
• A strong financial foundation (little or no debt, emergency savings and living below their means)
• A plan to follow to meet future financial goals
  

Having a positive culture in your workplace can play a huge role in the well-being of your employees and the quality of the work they do. When designing a wellness program, a lot of times just doing a screening or Health Risk Assessment isn’t enough to make an impact. If you really want to help your employees live healthier lifestyles, you’ll need to create an environment conducive to those choices.

Exercise has benefits no matter what weight someone may be. Overweight? Underweight? Struggling with a healthy diet? Doesn’t matter. Regular exercise will help to improve your health in some way.

Regular physical activity can help you to control your weight and combat health conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. It can improve your mood and increase your energy. Exercise can even help you sleep better at night.

Do you get enough zzz’s? Odds are you—and your employees—probably don’t. But what’s the big deal with being a little drowsy at work? There are actually quite a few negative outcomes of sleep deprivation. There are also plenty of things you can do to make sure you have a well-rested workforce.

At Work

Some of the negative consequences of sleep deprivation are seen at the workplace. It’s estimated that fatigue-related production loss is close to $2,000. This is due to mistakes that are made because employees' minds are quite as sharp on fewer hours of sleep.

Are we there yet? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we are just about to the end of the 2014-15 flu season!

We all know that this flu season was an interesting one. With the circulating strains a bit different from that in the virus, we saw a pretty active flu season. Check out the major takeaways from this past flu season.

In short, yes. Corporate wellness can be your competitive advantage.

Allow us to explain why. But first, it’s important to understand the goals of a corporate wellness program. Most programs have some combination of these goals: 

• Increase productivity and efficiency of work
• Improve employee morale and engagement
• Develop a more positive company culture
• Cut costs on insurance and employee healthcare packages
  

There are so many health conditions and diseases to worry about these days that the names can get lost in the shuffle. We want to point out one you may or may not have heard of. It’s called metabolic syndrome. This health condition is different than others because you absolutely have the power to rid yourself and your workplace of it.

So you might be asking, what exactly is metabolic syndrome?

The syndrome is basically a cluster of conditions that—when found together—greatly increase your risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The conditions are increased blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels.

The definition of health has evolved in the somewhat recent history. In order to understand what kind of health you’re striving for, it’s important to define what health means in your world.

Here at TotalWellness, we believe everyone is healthy. Yes, everyone. Each person has some healthy behavior in his or her life. We want to help your employees find that behavior and build more just like it.

To see how we’ve come to this conclusion, check out the evolution of health. From “an absence of disease” to a formal WHO definition, health has definitely developed into a more inclusive and more customizable goal. Click on the image below to view a larger version of this infographic:

A recent analysis from Employee Benefits News (EBN) suggests that the timing of your corporate wellness program doesn’t necessarily align with open enrollment. To truly maximize engagement, this is definitely something that needs to be considered.

You’ve heard the phrase timing is everything. In this case, that just might be true. If you put together an excellent wellness program with awesome promotion, but your workforce is simply focused on something else, you won’t make any progress.