Help employees cultivate healthy habits with Precision Wellness

10 December 2021 | 107 Shares

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Burnout: a syndrome that often arises from unmanageable, chronic workplace stress. What does it look like? Feeling exhausted mentally, physically and emotionally; growing negativity and cynicism about work; and losing interest in performing well. The company may start seeing employees taking more sick leaves, making more mistakes, a declining quality of customer service, and more resignations. Burnout is not classified as a medical condition, but its impact on health and wellbeing is hard to ignore.

A Deloitte report released earlier this year noted that burnout was being experienced by 75% of workers, and the risk of depression rose 102% for workers of all ages. The number was particularly horrifying for those aged 20-39, as the risk increased by 305%.

The pandemic changed the face of the modern workplace. A 2021 Paychex survey of 1,000 HR leaders found that 98% reported that the COVID-19 pandemic had transformed their role. The top benefits cited for this year are health insurance, parental leave, retirement plan, life insurance and telecommuting or remote work. These reflect an increased emphasis on workforce health and safety, employee mental health and emotional wellbeing, and the need for technology that keeps employees, managers and HR teams connected.

Technology plays a leading role in enabling the transformation process, from shifting to remote working and hybrid office arrangements to assisting HR with meeting the workforce’s expectations and the C-suites and aiding in self-care. LifeOmic Precision Wellness is an example of such technology in action, and it can help employees battered by burnout.

It is a mobile-friendly, medical-grade and holistic employee wellness program centred around the five pillars of health: exercise, nutrition, mindfulness, intermittent fasting and sleep.

These are the factors that have been scientifically proven to improve mental and physical health. Precision Wellness integrates with most wearable devices, including Fitbit, Garmin, Apple Watch, connected scales and more. This allows the employees to track their own five healthy habits and makes it easy for anyone to be more active in improving and learning more about their health at their own pace.

The platform gives employees access to certified virtual health coaches, blood biometric screening integrations, and they can even enrol in a 52-week guided and interactive program to achieve their health goals. For a LifeOmic employee, Joe Adams, Precision Wellness helped him lose 32 pounds, put his Type 2 diabetes on pause, and reduce his stress level.

“I have taken a blood test every six months since starting the program. Blood chemistry doesn’t lie. And as my blood test results show, I have reversed my Type 2 diabetes issues,” Adams told Insider in April. “When it comes to our own health, we need to be in charge of ourselves and not depend on a healthcare system to ride in and save us.”

As the world is adjusting to intra-pandemic living and a return to the office, it is vital to be aware of burnouts and nip their cause in the bud. Digital anthropologist Rahaf Harfoush suggested five interventions to implement during the reintegration period in a recent Harvard Business Review article:

  1. Easing slowly into socialization
  2. Establishing team rituals
  3. Reining in scope creep around jobs
  4. Creating space for uninterrupted work
  5. Creating recovery time

Rejoining society after long periods of isolation and limited face-to-face interaction with peers may induce stress and anxiety. Employees can use Precision Wellness to gradually re-socialize and build up team spirit by creating and joining co-worker “Circles” to encourage each other on their fitness journey. The platform also has a wealth of resources to guide them in setting up better work-personal boundaries and habits through the LIFE Apps Learning Library and Lifeology courses.

LifeOmic itself fosters a health-centric workplace culture by having its staff take part in the same Precision Wellness program that it offers to its client – and taking it to the next level by putting money where its mouth is.

“We incentivize healthy biomarkers (via a simple blood draw), a healthcare assessment survey, and achieve a monthly average of 7,500 LIFE Points. LIFE Points are earned by practicing mindfulness, eating fruits and vegetables, intermittent fasting, sleeping, and exercise,” Dr Don Brown, CEO of LifeOmic, told Insider.

Employees can get up to US$1,950 as a bonus on top of their salary if they hit all the incentives. There is even a US$1,000 bonus for smokers who successfully quit for six months, with the company paying for their smoking cessation programs. Employees say they are happier and more productive after following the program, but the company saves money on insurance. “We don’t have multiple years’ worth of data yet but in 2021 alone, our insurance costs went down 10% which was from a direct impact of reduced claims,” said Dr Brown, a serial entrepreneur who followed his long-time passion for health care and invested $20 millions of his savings to start LifeOmic in 2016 – after selling his third software company, Interactive Intelligence, for $1.6 billion. His goal is to advance personalized medicine by applying artificial intelligence, cloud technologies and mobile devices to health care.

LifeOmic currently has more than 90 team members of highly experienced engineers, scientists, and security specialists. It was named in the top 50 on Outside’s “Best Places to Work” list for the third year recently. “LifeOmic wouldn’t be where it is today without our team. The past two years came with huge internal adjustments, but we knew the importance of taking great care of our employees and will continue to ensure everyone at LifeOmic has a rewarding, healthy and enjoyable workplace,” said Dr Brown, proving that they don’t just talk the talk on boosting employee wellbeing, they walk the walk too.

Click here to find out how LifeOmic Precision Wellness can transform your life and empower you to take control of your health and wellness.