By Lauren Anderson, BizTimes, March 2, 2020
Workplace wellness programs typically target employees’ physical health through weight loss and healthy eating initiatives, measured by clinical benchmarks like Body Mass Index, cholesterol and blood pressure.
But, while those metrics may be easy to track – and could tamp down health care costs – wellness experts say it’s no longer enough to focus workplace wellness efforts on just physical health but to broaden the scope to include mental health.
“What we’re seeing is that the definition (of wellness) is widely expanding, from a place where it was a lot more focused on physical health and how to support people to become healthier physically, to now encompassing a wider definition of what wellness can be,” said Marissa Kalkman, executive director of Wellness Council of Wisconsin. “One thing we’re having a lot of conversations with employers about is how do we support more of the whole person? And mental health is very much a part of that.”
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