1. Experts focus on workplace health issues
By Adam Tobias of the Daily Times staff
Wednesday, December 9, 2009 11:51 AM CST
JOHNSON CREEK - Several health experts met with community members Tuesday to talk
about practices that can help improve health in the workplace during a Healthy Lifestyles
forum held at the Comfort Suites in Johnson Creek.
Sandra Larkin, an executive wellness consultant and author of “Healthy Profits,” said
wellness at work is important now more than ever because of escalating health care costs
and the added stress of employees.
Citing a recent article in a Chicago-area newspaper, Larkin said that small business owners
can expect a 20 percent increase in insurance rates in 2010 and larger firms will see a 5.8
percent increase, the largest in the past four years.
“It goes on to say in the article that employers are now thinking that they are going to drop
their health insurance completely because they cannot afford it or they are going to have
higher employee contributions,” Larkin said. “What is going to end up happening when the
economy gets better is their best people are going to leave and go on to someplace else
where they can get benefits or they are not going to be able to attract quality people to
come into their business.”
Larkin also said that wellness at work is extremely important now because of stress that is
caused by tighter deadlines, a lack of resources, less time to complete work, the need for
higher quality work and work place conflicts.
“We want to be a superhero but basically we are
just tapped out at work because of all these
deadlines and conflicts,” Larkin added.
According to Larkin, 40 percent of people that
were recently polled reported that their job was
often extremely stressful and 25 percent viewed
their jobs as the No. 1 stressor in their lives. Larkin also said 75 percent believed they have
more on-the-job stress than the generation before them and 26 percent said they were
“often or very often burned out or stressed by their work.”
“Economic conditions contribute to stress in the workplace,” Larkin said. “We are losing
customers and we can't get new customers, so there is a lot of ‘inutia' going on there that
causes us to feel really stressed out and burnt out in the workplace regardless if you are
one person - a sole entrepreneur - or IBM or a huge hospital.”
Larkin said it is vital for a community to come up with a strategic wellness program that
focuses on physical, emotional, intellectual, social and occupational factors. Larkin also
outlined several creative ways to connect community and corporate wellness programs.
Those suggestions included utilizing the chamber of commerce, public health sector, parks
and recreation, hospitals, group health care providers, a wellness library, monthly health
observances and online fitness challenges.

2. Larkin added that marketing the wellness program can be just as important as the program
itself.
“You can set up a great program and you can go to corporate and everything can look
groovy on paper, but if you can't market that or communicate that, it's going nowhere,”
Larkin said. “It has to be marketed and it has to be communicated and this is where
sometimes it falls down.”
Dr. Julie Willems Van Dijk, a registered nurse with the University of Wisconsin-Madison
Population Health Institute, outlined the Healthiest States project her group has been
working on and discussed a report titled “What Works: Policies and Programs to Improve
Wisconsin's Health.”
The “What Works: Policies and Programs to Improve Wisconsin's Health” report is a
summary of a wide array of research that found evidence of effectiveness for policies and
programs that address the multiple drivers of health.
“This is not a tool to be used just by university academics or just to be used by public health
practitioners in the community,” Van Dijk said. “It is a tool that we want everyone to use
and we want to emphasize that health is everybody's business.”
In order to start a wellness works program, Van Dijk says that people should first complete
a community diagnoses. The community should then dissect the data, make a diagnosis on
the most important priorities and put a program into place. Van Dijk said it is also critical to
have diverse participation and leadership and political will.
“Many of the policies and programs that will ultimately impact the health of the public - the
health of your community - might be a little cutting edge,” Van Dijk said. “They might be a
little out of the box. Some of them might be things you've already started and done, but
some might be absolutely new policies.”
Even in these tough economic times, Van Dijk says every community has enough resources
to get healthier.
“Sometimes I know we get stuck, especially in times like this saying, ‘There is so many
good things to do but we just don't have any money. There is just no resources,'” Van Dijk
said. “Well, I want you to look to your left and to your right because you've got a ton of
resources in this room. If we blend our resources and we think about creative ways to use
our resources, there are resources in the corporate and private sectors, there are
community benefit dollars from the hospitals, there are numerous state and federal grants
and there are, in this area, a lot of money coming forward in the stimulus plans and
hopefully in whatever we pass in health care reform.
“There are wise minds and motivated people who often can take things to a very far place
even without new money,” she added. “So, don't be stuck thinking, ‘We don't have any
resources,' because you have resources in this room. You just have to work together, think
creatively together and think about new ways of how you want to use the resources that are
there.”
Other guests who spoke at the forum included Kristi Schalow, a wellness coordinator with
Trek Bicycle Corp.; Kevin Setnes, manager of corporate health and wellness of Standard
Process; Theresa Dew, human resources manager of the Custom Shoppe; Watertown
Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Douglas Keiser; Susan Wollin, a public health

3. nurse with the Watertown Department of Public Health; Mary Rosecky, a public health nurse
with the Dodge County Human Services and Health Department; and state Depart-ment of
Natural Resources representative John Pohlman, who works on the Glacial Heritage Area
Project.
Those speakers discussed different steps their organizations have taken to create a
healthier work environment.