Work Daze

It’s all my fault! If I weren’t such a disorganized mess, you’d be slim and trim today.

Let me explain: I just found a life-changing press release in the leaning tower of paper I call my filing system. The release was released in December of last year, timed for a New Year’s resolution article about how managers could motivate their employees to lose weight. Unfortunately, I was too busy finishing off the Christmas goose to notice the newsflash and now, here we all are, fatter than ticks, preparing to mug the Easter Bunny for his stash of crème-filled chocolate eggs.

But it’s never too late to become a loser, and I’m sure that’s a sentiment likely to be endorsed by Thomas N. Gilliam, Ph.D, the author of “Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy: Achieve a Healthier Workplace One Employee at a Time.”

It is Mr. Gilliam’s contention that an enlightened employer can lighten up his workforce with a “corporate wellness program.” While I am less sanguine about getting over-stressed, underpaid worker bees to “just put down that jelly donut and come out with your hands up,” author Gilliam certainly has a plethora of facts to demonstrate that the fat in our systems is doing more than clogging our arteries.

Take the sad case of General Motors where it was reported that every obese worker costs the company an extra $1,500 every year in health costs. And since 34% of GM’s active workers and dependents are obese, that adds up to an extra $1.4 billion in healthcare costs per year. Not to mention the expense of the recalls to remove the Domino pizza boxes from the oil pan of your Chevy Conquistador.

And the percentage of obese workers is rising all across the economic landscape. Obese workers grew to 37% in 2005 and are expected to explode to a full 47% by 2010. Scary numbers, though, of course, it all depends on your definition of obese. [My definition doesn’t rely on a bunch of complicated statistics. In my world, an obese person is defined as anyone who is fatter than me.]

Being a Ph.D, Dr. Gilliam is smart enough to realize that getting employees to shape up takes more than scary statistics. He offers some tips for the caring, cost-conscious manager to utilize in trimming the fat around the office. I’ll share a few to help you get started:

1. Broach the subject in terms of overall health, not just weight.

If you don’t want to offend your obese employees, Gilliam suggests you downplay any emphasis on the disadvantages of being overweight and focus instead on the positive attributes of being healthy. “Remind people that by losing weight, they may ward off hip and knee replacements, diabetes, heart disease, perhaps even cancer.”

I disagree. While this is certainly the politically correct way to discuss weight, I’m not sure the fatties in the group will get the message. Believe me, if I can convince myself that the best explanation for why my pants no longer fit is because there are Martians living among us who are trying to make us lose confidence by systematically shrinking our Dockers, I’m never buying some ridiculous story about celery being good for you.

2. Get your employees excited about good nutrition.

Gilliam suggests erecting a “recipe bulletin board so that employees can share the details of their delicious finds and their own culinary creations.” He also suggests a “potluck lunch to which everyone brings his or her favorite healthful dish.” Now this might actually work. Once your co-workers smell the irresistible aroma of your muskrat meatloaf with hollandaise they may give up eating altogether.

3. Foster and encourage exercise groups

“Put a treadmill in a vacant room,” suggests Dr. Gilliam. I would put a treadmill in every cubical. They’re cheaper than those fancy Aeron chairs we have now, and are really much more appropriate for a group of people who are working hard and not getting anywhere.

4. Remove all junk food from the premises.

Gilliam is correct when he suggests “it’s hard to stay on track when vending machines packed with grease and sugar and trans fatty acids beckon with their sinister glow.” On the other hand, it is even harder to stay employed when deprived of these essential and yummy elements. With our measly paychecks, if it weren’t for the opportunity to satisfy our addiction to trans fatty acids, we would probably never come into work at all.