Well-Being Where You Work: Putting it into Practice

12/07/21 • 27 min

Today’s guest, Dr. Sam Dolezal, is the Wellbeing Officer at Union Bank & Trust, acting as the company go-to for anything health & wellness related. Sam’s role focuses on personal training, fitness classes, and generally being a cheerleader for the employees. Sam asks the question ‘How do individuals learn?’ and provides information on how she helps others to strive for well-being. UBTWell offers a whole host of benefits including the wellness reimbursement account, where associates get $250 every year to spend on a variety of approved items. Tune in to hear Kerry and Sam discuss everything from focusing on what the needs of your team members are, creating virtual events during the pandemic and how to establish the effectiveness of a program.

IN THIS EPISODE:

[01:00] Introducing Sam Dolezal
[05:00] UBTWell Programs and wellness benefits
[08:00] The Wellness Reimbursement account
[10:30] Staying on top of innovation
[14:00] The C Everett Koop National Health Award
[20:00] Success is based upon the engagement of the entire community

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Union Bank & Trust is an example of an award winning and successful workplace wellness programs.
UBT uses a variety of strategies to implement programs that obtain a very high engagement rate.
How the workplace wellness programs are implemented at UBT, including the Wellness Reimbursement account.
How outcomes can be tracked both for the employer and employees.

BIO:

Dr. Sam Dolezal is the Wellbeing Officer at Union Bank & Trust, acting as the company go-to for anything health & wellness related. While her responsibility is ensuring a healthy workplace, she gets to fulfill her passion for supporting others on their journey to a healthier tomorrow. With a doctoral degree in Healthcare Education and extensive background in exercise science and community health, Sam draws on all her education and experience to help others live their very best lives. As passionate about community as she is fitness, Sam is an active volunteer in multiple organizations and is a business member of the Tobacco-Free Lancaster County Task Force.

IN THIS EPISODE:

[01:00] Introducing Sam Dolezal
[05:00] UBTWell Programs and wellness benefits
[08:00] The Wellness Reimbursement account
[10:30] Staying on top of innovation
[14:00] The C Everett Koop National Health Award
[20:00] Success is based upon the engagement of the entire community

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Union Bank & Trust is an example of an award winning and successful workplace wellness programs.
UBT uses a variety of strategies to implement programs that obtain a very high engagement rate.
How the workplace wellness programs are implemented at UBT, including the Wellness Reimbursement account.
How outcomes can be tracked both for the employer and employees.

BIO:

Previous Episode

Well-Being Where You Work: What Have We Learned?

The Behavior Change podcast is hosted by Dr. Kerry E. Evers, Ph.D. discussing innovative and evidence-based behavior change strategies designed to increase wellbeing. Today’s guest, Dr. Ron Goetzel, Ph.D. is a nationally recognized and widely published expert in health and productivity management return on investment program, evaluation and outcome research. Dr. Goetzel is the senior scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of public health, the director of the Institute for health and productivity studies, and the president and CEO of the health project. Tune in for Dr. Kerry Evers and Dr. Ron Goetzel’s conversation as they discuss workplace wellbeing in addition to establishing a relationship between employee wellbeing, productivity and organizational success!

IN THIS EPISODE:

[01:00] Americans will spend about a third of their lives at work
[02:45] There is a relationship between employee health and well-being and economic and business outcomes
[04:00] Can you improve the health and wellbeing of your employees?
[06:00] The culture of the organization and leadership are central to any programs
[08:00] What will emerge post COVID-19
[11:30] Top 10 list of magic ingredients for workplace programs
[16:00] Recommendations for small businesses
[21:00] C Everett Koop National Health Awards

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Worksites are doing more well-being and disease prevention work than any other entity in society today.
There are many benefits to implementing wellness effectively, not only for the employees, but also for the organizations.
Simple wellness-focused changes can cost almost nothing and create monumental change.

BIO:

Ron Z. Goetzel, PhD, Senior Scientist and Director, Institute for Health and Productivity Studies at Johns Hopkins University and Vice President of Consulting and Applied Research at Truven Health Analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters Healthcare Business) is a nationally recognized expert in health management, data analysis, and applied research. He has led numerous projects focusing on documenting the health and productivity cost burden of various disease conditions and the ROI achieved by health management programs. He is Principal Investigator (PI) on several large-scale NIH, CDC, and CMS funded studies focused on risk reduction and cost savings. Dr. Goetzel earned his doctorate in Organizational and Administrative Studies and his MA in Applied Social Psychology from New York University, and his BS degree in Psychology from the City College of New York.

Next Episode

Resolutions: Yea or Nay? Episode 1 with John Norcross

Today’s guest, Dr. John Norcross, is an internationally recognized authority on behavior change and psychotherapy. Dr. Norcross is the author of more than 400 scholarly publications, and his work has been featured in hundreds of media interviews. In this episode, Dr. Norcross provides insight on setting our New Year's resolutions: the history behind the tradition, how we keep them, and the reasons behind why we let them slip. Tune in to hear Dr. Norcross explain how the pandemic affected our resolutions, the number one resolution people make each year, the statistics on how many succeed, and the research behind how a “slip” can become a success.

IN THIS EPISODE:

[03:00] There is a historical and psychological tradition to resolutions.
[05:00] Weight loss is at the top of the list of New Year's resolutions for Americans
[08:00] The success rate for resolutions is actually higher than many people think. .
[10:00] Not only Americans have this concept of a New Year's resolution.
[15:00] There is no difference when people make changes at other times of the year, other than they gain a lot more support from the society due to the timing at the beginning of a year.
[19:00] Create reminders for resolutions, and limit exposure to high risk situations.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

New Year's resolutions stem back to ancient and medieval times.
60% of Americans declare to make a resolution in December but come New Year's day only 35 to 40% actually do so.
There are ways to successfully stick to your resolutions, like creating reminders, declaring your intentions publicly, and limiting exposure to high risk situations.

BIO:

An internationally recognized authority on behavior change and psychotherapy, Dr. John C. Norcross is Distinguished Professor & Chair of Psychology at the University of Scranton, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University, and a board-certified clinical psychologist. Author of more than 400 scholarly publications, Dr. Norcross has co-written or edited 25 books, most of them in multiple editions. These include the 5-volume APA Handbook of Clinical Psychology, Psychotherapy Relationships that Work, and Systems of Psychotherapy: A Transtheoretical Analysis, now in its 9th edition. He also published the acclaimed self-help books, Changeology and Changing for Good (with Prochaska & DiClemente).

Dr. Norcross has been elected president of the American Psychological Association (APA) Society of Clinical Psychology, the APA Division of Psychotherapy, and the Society for the Exploration of Psychotherapy Integration. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Register of Health Service Psychologists as well as on APA’s governing Council of Representatives. Dr. Norcross edited the Journal of Clinical Psychology: In Session for a decade and has been on the editorial boards of a dozen journals. Dr. Norcross has also served as a clinical and research consultant to a number of organizations, including the National Institutes of Health and pharmaceutical companies. A Fellow of 10 professional associations, he has been honored with APA’s Distinguished Career Contributions to Education & Training Award, the Pennsylvania Professor of the Year from the Carnegie Foundation, and election to the National Academies of Practice. His work has been featured in hundreds of media interviews, and he has appeared dozens of times on national television shows, such as the Today Show, CBS Sunday Morning, and CNN.

www.changeologybook.com/

www.scranton.edu/faculty/norcross/index.shtml

https://www.facebook.com/john.c.norcross