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© Copyright 2000 Rogers Media. The following article first appeared in the October 2000 edition of
BENEFITS CANADA magazine.
Get well soon
The Health, Work & Wellness Conference is good food for thought.
The registration form for this year's Health, Work & Wellness Conference features more dietary options
than some conferences offer seminars. You can check off the vegan box, the no meat box, the
no poultry box, the no seafood box or the no fish box (in case there is any confusion
about the nature of seafood). There is the allergic to box of course, with a long line to
list what ails you, and the always popular other box, after which I'm writing in special requests
for extra mustard on my hot dog and bacon-flavoured potato chips.
I'm a bit of a smarty-pants though.
Thankfully, humour (sophomoric though it may be) is also welcome at this nicely rounded event. The Health,
Work & Wellness people are running their fourth annual show in Toronto, Oct. 22 to 25 at the Westin
Harbour Castle. Details are available at healthworkandwellness.com.
The development of Canadian workplace wellness is in a critical phase. Clearly the movement continues to
progress. But it does so slowly, hampered by backward-looking senior executives content to ignore the
plethora of research available supporting the cost savings of a commitment to wellness in the workplace.
If we don't see stronger buy-in from a broad base of Canada's public- and private-sector employers soon,
the wellness movement risks losing momentum.
This makes Health, Work & Wellness, and events like it, timely. Its organizers and participants are
doing important work.
We cannot depend on a handful of leading organizations like Nortel and TELUS to inspire understanding--and
acceptance--of the business case supporting workplace wellness. It is up to you and your colleagues across
Canada to sell a holistic belief in progressive, proven health initiatives.
Kevin Nagel, executive vice- president, Canadian operations, at Healthtrac in Calgary wants to help.
Nagel's workshop, "Defining Organizational Success: A Correlation of Leading American and Canadian
Organizational Values, Health Management Practices and Key Performance Indicators," will be a highlight on
the Health, Work & Wellness agenda.
Nagel is an enthusiastic promoter of workplace wellness, ready and able to challenge the naysayers. His
frankness is refreshing.
"Steelcase saved [an estimated] $20 million in 10 years," he says, referring to the company's U.S.
operations. "The research is fundamentally solid. Health programs reduce health risks, and reduced health
risks mean lower costs to organizations . . . People who say health programs don't contribute to the bottom
line haven't read the literature."
Nagel wants government subsidies for employers willing to implement scientifically proven initiatives.
"I've been studying this area extensively for a good seven to 10 years, and I haven't run into anybody who
can make the case that wellness doesn't pay," says Nagel. "If you can identify just one individual for me
and bring him to the conference, I'd be happy to chat with him."
That's a lunch I would sign up for.
--Kevin Press
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