Prevention is the best cure

As Timothy Crimmins, General Mills, explains, taking healthcare beyond the benefits is an investment with a long-term payout.

During nearly 20 years working in emergency medicine, I have treated too many people with preventable injuries and illnesses. Today my focus is prevention and my patients are the 20,000 US-based employees of General Mills.

Challenged with rising healthcare costs, companies can realize an economic benefit from investing in preventive health and wellness programs for employees beyond traditional benefit plans. Investing in preventive wellness resources is a significant shift from the traditional model of employees seeking healthcare through their benefit plans after they become sick or injured.

The new approach emphasizes proactive prevention rather than simply treating disease, illness and injury with healthcare. It saves money to have employees feel good both physically and mentally. Our benefits costs generally track lower than the national average and we believe there is productivity benefit by keeping employees healthy. Employee wellness programs also play a role in attracting and retaining employees and our turnover is significantly lower than the industry average.

For more than 20 years, General Mills has provided programs and resources to employees that encourage them to live a healthy lifestyle. The cornerstone of all our wellness programs is a balanced emphasis on physical, mental and social well-being. There are a number of ways companies can keep employees healthy, and I’ll take you through our approach to each of these:

•Customize preventative health programs for different employee populations.
•Meaningful communication with employees.
•Offer a variety of weight management strategies.
•Encourage physical activity.

A customized approach
Our goal is the same across the company – we want all General Mills employees to lead an active lifestyle, maintain a healthy weight, and a normal blood pressure and cholesterol. But the key to keeping such a broad employee base healthy is to take a customized approach. We have three distinct employee audiences: corporate headquarters, manufacturing employees in plant locations across the US, and sales employees who work out of regional sales offices or their homes. Each population requires a different strategy, as well as unique communication style and methods.

Corporate headquarters
‘Total You’ is the branded employee wellness program for corporate headquarters employees; the challenges for this population are sedentary lifestyles, stress and nutrition. The goal is to create an environment that empowers employees to manage life stress and provide information and resources for emotional resilience in dealing with life’s challenges. We provide an ongoing stream of education and activities to keep employees positively engaged in their own wellness, and have partnered with the Mayo Clinic so our employees can easily access the best health information at their desktops.

In addition to offering the Total You program, General Mills’ Health Services department at our corporate headquarters provides no-cost same-day appointments, flu shots, labs and x-rays, dermatology services, women’s and men’s health programs, physical therapy, ergonomic recommendations, preventative dental services, contact lens and eyeglass services and more. The onsite fitness centers and other employee services (concierge, a small grocery store, a credit union, a hair salon, coffee shop, take-out delicatessen, onsite tailor and on-site automotive service center) are all part of the company’s commitment to helping employees manage the challenges of everyday living. The goal is to create convenient access to the services that help enhance the employee’s health and quality of life.

Manufacturing employees
General Mills assigns health, safety and environment (HSE) representatives in our manufacturing locations to lead the championing and delivering of wellness programs to our supply chain employees.

Last year, HSE representatives at 14 manufacturing locations hosted ‘Health Number’ screenings, in which more than 2000 employees participated. The Health Number screening is the personalized, ‘live’ version of a health risk assessment at General Mills. The purpose of the screening is to identify employee health risks, motivate healthy lifestyle changes, highlighting wellness resources that are readily available to employees, and reduce the rate of increase in healthcare costs.

In an onsite ‘health fair’ environment at our manufacturing plants, employees are asked a series of questions on the following 10 lifestyle factors:
1. Physical activity
2. Tobacco use
3. Nutrition
4. Body mass index
5. Seat belt usage
6. Alcohol use
7. Stress level
8. Blood pressure
9. Cholesterol
10. Fasting blood sugar

After taking the screening, employees are given their final Health Number score, which falls between zero and 100, according to the following guidelines:

Employees in need of personal coaching are directed to local resources (such as clinics, therapists and specialists), Mayo Clinic’s Health Information website and/or Mayo Clinic’s personal health coaching (via telephone) for one-on-one counseling on tobacco cessation, weight management, stress and exercise. In addition, our in-house physicians advocate for our employees to get the clinical services they need through their local clinics.

In addition to Health Number screenings, HSE representatives promote and host health fairs, on-site Weight Watchers meetings, and fun events like the “Couch Potato Triathalon.” Each HSE representative works with the corporate health promotions manager and their local management team to determine their local health-and-wellness promotions priorities for the year.

Sales employees
General Mills’ sales organization’s TriHealthalon program has a 20-year track record of helping employees live healthier lives. Over the past two decades, our measurement shows sales employees have made healthier choices due to the consistent TriHealthalon health-and-wellness promotions on exercise, blood pressure management, defensive driving, environmental wellness, resiliency and stress management. Each year, the annual TriHealthalon program is announced during the National Sales Meeting, and is designed to stimulate friendly competition between employees and regions, as everyone works to attain their health and wellness goals for the year.

In 2005, a University of Michigan researcher analyzed the changes in health risks for 27 self-selected employees, all of whom have been participating in the TriHealthalon program for 20 years. The results are as follows:

•Smoking rates dropped from 18 percent to 0 percent in this group.
•Seat belt usage increased to 100 percent.
•Despite being 20 years older, there was improvement in blood pressure and cholesterol
•Reported physical activity remained constant over time

In 2005, more than 45 percent of sales employees participated in the Health Number screening. The Health Number serves as a motivational tool to help employees work on their personal health goals for the year. The aggregate data are presented at meetings and serves as the basis for new, relevant activities and programs that address the specific health needs of this group.

Communication is key
The communication tactics vary by the needs of each campaign and each audience, but virtually all our campaigns involve the use of fliers, mailings, posters, intranet stories, emails and ‘Champions TV’, General Mills broadcast intranet channel.

The key messages we include in all our communications include ‘moderation’, ‘balance’, ‘small, sustainable changes’ and ‘long-term strategies for living’ to ensure employees understand that there is no quick fix for most health or wellness challenges.

We avoid the word ‘diet’ in our communications because it is an emotionally-loaded term. Our goal is to stress the importance of good nutrition and making balanced choices, not to live in a constant state of deprivation that can lead to unhealthy eating behaviors.

Encourage healthy weight
In January 2004, General Mills launched its first large-scale New Year’s Resolution wellness promotion called ‘Lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks’. In partnership with the Mayo Clinic, we hosted 10 weeks of speakers and activities to engage employees (with BMIs of 25 or greater) in losing weight in a healthy, sustainable way. The net result was:

•1321 participants
•500 participants overweight at time of enrollment
•443 enrollees who lost weight
•2990lbs = total weight loss
•6.7lbs = average weight loss per person
•Average BMI went from 27.9 to 27.0 in 10 weeks

The program continued in 2005 and 2006, and new elements were added. In 2005, corporate headquarters employees had the opportunity to participate in a weekly ‘Fun Friday’ event that included activities such as snowshoeing, cross country skiing and ice skating, dodgeball, badminton and a group walking event. More than 330 employees participated in the Fun Friday activities.

One of the small, sustainable changes we promoted in 2006 was the benefits of eating breakfast. Total You, General Mills Foodservice and Sodexho partnered to provide free breakfast to corporate headquarters employees for the whole month of January. Each morning, employees were able to select from free breakfast cereal as well as their choice of skim milk or our own 8th Continent fat-free and regular soymilk. Our campaign tagline “In fact, we feel so strongly about it that we’ll buy you breakfast!” created a tremendous amount of activity and ‘buzz’ among our corporate headquarters employees. In one month, we provided more than 9000 free breakfasts to our Twin Cities employees.

Get employees moving

The corporate headquarters buildings have provided employees with a number of safe, easy walking places, including:

• The Fitness Centers, which are open 24 hours a day. Treadmills, elliptical trainers and bicycles are available to our employees and their dependents.
• More than two miles of marked, paved walking paths are maintained by General Mills. In addition, during the winter months, a 1.5km groomed cross country ski trail is available on the corporate headquarters campus.
• We created a ‘Heart Loop’ map of indoor walking paths that marks the distances inside our buildings for employees who want to chart out their daily walks.
  Five General Mills manufacturing plants have outdoor walking paths and seven plants have fitness centers.

We have found that healthy employees are happy employees. We believe they will take fewer sick days, are more productive on the job, and stick around longer. Fewer injuries and illnesses help keep healthcare benefit costs down. Taking health care beyond the benefits is an investment with a long-term payout, and a program can be built one step at a time.

Timothy Crimmins is Vice President and Director of Health, Safety and Environment at General Mills. He came to General Mills from the Hennepin County Medical Center where he was Deputy Medical Director and practiced Emergency and Occupational Medicine. Crimmins earned the distinguished service award from the Minnesota Medical Association where he previously served as Chairman of the Board. He has been very active in safety activities, was on the board of directors of the Minnesota Safety Council from 1987-91, President of the Minnesota Seat Belt Coalition from 1987-91, and Chair of the Governor’s Transportation Safety Advisory Commission from 1990-91.