Employee Walking Program Promotes a Healthier Workforce and Lower Costs

July 12, 2011 - PRLog -- According to the American Heart Association (www.heart.org), walking for as little as 30 minutes a day offers significant heart health benefits. It’s one of the simplest, safest ways to get moving, inexpensive, and has the lowest dropout rate of any type of exercise. Walktober (http://www.walktober.com), an innovative worksite wellness program from Health Enhancement Systems (http://www.hesonline.com), will get individuals and teams working together to adopt a daily walking habit that reduces health risks and improves well-being.

Total healthcare expenditures per active employee are expected to rise by 7.5% in 2011, according to global human resources consulting firm Towers Watson (www.towerswatson.com). The cost burden on employers and workers is staggering — but the toll on quality of life and work productivity can be even worse.

The good news is that many healthcare cost-drivers — like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers — can be prevented with healthy lifestyle habits, including regular exercise:
•   A single bout of mild- to moderate-intensity cardiovascular exercise like walking can reduce systolic blood pressure by an average of 5 points for up to 22 hours
•   Regular physical activity is strongly associated with reduced risk of breast and colon cancer
•   Moderate-intensity exercise like walking reduces stress and relieves symptoms of mild anxiety and depression
•   Regular exercise improves insulin sensitivity and helps maintain a healthy body weight, decreasing risk for diabetes and heart disease
•   Exercise promotes good brain health for improved learning ability, concentration, critical thinking — even helping prevent dementia and other age-related declines in brain function.

Regular exercise is a powerful tool in disease management — but preventing serious conditions in the first place is far more cost-effective. The tough part is getting workers moving, keeping them moving, and helping them establish a lifelong habit of physical activity.

That’s why Walktober focuses on walking — an easy, enjoyable activity that nearly anyone can do. The revamped online program will engage employees with fun, interactive trails to track daily steps or dedicated walking minutes.  Participants journey to a new location every day — with colorful graphics and vivid images from North America’s most spectacular autumn hot spots that enhance the user experience and keep them coming back. A fresh new home page shows participants their location on the trail plus a new ZIP code-based weather icon offers a quick look at current conditions. Participants are awarded red, orange, or gold leaves — each with a different point value — each day based on walking steps or minutes. Informative, motivating daily emails along with the Fun Fall Facts game encourage daily log-ins. To help fuel success, Walktober also features easy-to-make healthy fall recipes, conveniently located in a searchable database that allows users to flag favorites and take a look at recently viewed recipes.

Social support is a key ingredient in successful employee wellness programs — and it’s built in to Walktober in several ways. Individuals can invite other participants to be Sole Mates (a buddy feature) — to view each other’s progress and provide motivation with encouraging messages. For a healthy spirit of competition, teams of 4 or more gather leaf points to win. Participants can also access a message board to inspire others, stay motivated, or simply view posts from the Walktober expert.

Walktober is also available in an easy-to-implement paper version. The kit includes emails to boost participation, customizable promotion materials, educational articles, recipes, games, and more for seamless execution to any size organization.

“Getting active and staying active doesn’t have to be complicated,” notes Dean Witherspoon, CEO and founder of Health Enhancement Systems. “Walktober keeps employee wellness simple by focusing on walking. Participants will love the fun, easy-to-use daily tracking. The program makes daily walking something to look forward to with a fun team competition, engaging graphics, and the web’s best resources. We want to inspire participants to keep on walking long after Walktober is over.”

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Health Enhancement Systems creates employee wellness programs for organizations in North America and throughout the world. More than 20 effective, engaging HES wellness campaigns have been adopted by over a thousand organizations — serving hundreds of thousands of participants successfully.

For more information about Health Enhancement Systems, visit http://www.HealthEnhancementSystems.com or call 800.326.2317.