Workplaces rewarded for encouraging healthy living

When Lissa Aubin's workplace, the Sudbury-Manitoulin branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, brought in a healthy workplace challenge earlier this year, she really took it to heart.

Lissa Aubin and Marion Quigley of the Canadian Mental Health Association show off their organization's Workplace Wellness Award. Photo by Heidi Ulrichsen.

When Lissa Aubin's workplace, the Sudbury-Manitoulin branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, brought in a healthy workplace challenge earlier this year, she really took it to heart.

All of the staff wore pedometers to track the number of kilometres they collectively walked over a six-week period, with the goal of (virtually) making it to Australia.

The 52 staff at the agency were broken up into two teams - Team Kangaroo and Team Koala - to see which one would walk the largest distance. Some of the staff went out walking during breaks and lunch hours.

Aubin, who regularly walks, jogs and teaches martial arts, managed to clock 1,000 kilometres by herself. The rehabilitation practitioner exercises about five hours per day.

“My score was the difference between Team Kangaroo and Team Koala. So if I wouldn't have been on Team Koala, they would have been tied. But Team Koala had 1,000 more kilometres because of me.”

Aubin said the staff didn't quite manage to reach their goal of making it to Australia. “We were almost there. We drowned,” she said with a laugh.

The Canadian Mental Health Association was just one of 12 workplaces who received Workplace Wellness Awards from the Sudbury & District Health Unit and the Health Health Workplace Committee (which includes several health organizations) at a luncheon at the Quality Inn Oct. 21.

The awards recognize workplaces that have focused on implementing initiatives in one or more of the following areas - healthy eating, active living, stress management, work-life balance, sun safety, breastfeeding, tobacco-free living, reproductive health and alcohol and substance misuse.

Marion Quigley, CEO of the Sudbury-Manitoulin branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association, said the challenge was meant to encourage employees to have a good work-life balance.

“Everybody in our community has stress every day. Everybody deals with stress differently. But we feel that by promoting healthy lifestyles - exercise, good eating, lots of sleep - will all help reduce some of the symptoms of stress,” said Quigley.

“That's why, as an employer, we really promote the health unit's program around workplace wellness.”

Natalie Phillipe, a public health nurse with the Sudbury & District Health Unit, said encouraging healthy living in workplaces can pay off for employers.

“There's increased productivity (among employees). It's actually been shown and proven that for every dollar invested in workplace health, there's actually money brought back into the workplace. It's bang for your buck.”

Phillipe said the health unit has workplace wellness consultants which are available for employers to use as a free resource. “What we do is go into the workplace and work with you towards that goal,” she said.

Mona Sauvé-Turner of the Sudbury Vocational Resource Centre, said the 35 people who work for her organization had an exercise challenge of (virtually) walking to Hawaii during the winter of 2009.

However, the staff didn't quite make it to Hawaii. “We got to about the Florida keys,” she said.

Sauvé-Turner said staff did lunchtime yoga classes, formed a walking club, and went skating at the Sudbury Arena.

“I found it very motivating. It was a good thing to get us through the winter,” she said.

For more information about workplace wellness programs, phone the health unit at 522-9200, ext. 290.