Employees: 5000
At Mutual of Omaha, over 76 percent of the 3,900 home office employees participate in many wellness programs offered by the company, including an on-site fitness facility.
An initial fitness evaluation is conducted by an exercise physiologist, includes lung function, muscular and cardiovascular strength tests and body composition analysis. Body composition analysis is done using a skin fold caliber, BMI or hip to waste ratio. After the test, the wellness staff reviews the employee’s results and makes suggestions for health improvements.
The company’s wellness staff includes an employed manager and four members who are contracted through a health fitness vendor. These individuals all have personal training and group fitness class certificates or degrees (some with master’s preparation), one is a strength and conditioning coach.
The company’s wellness staff works hard to communicate wellness offerings to employees. They frequently add announcements to the daily e-newsletter, called “Noon News” or add content to the intranet. On the front page of the intranet, there is a flash media box that is available for advertising important messages. The wellness staff frequently utilizes this space to place an article or a creative video that emphasizes the importance of a particular program.
Overall Programs
The company’s StepWell program is a unique fitness at work program that promotes the use of stairwells and company tunnels.
Part of the program encourages employees to lose weight with their “one flight a day” challenge. They advertise and encourage employees to walk up one or walk down two flights of stairs each day for added exercise. Pens, pedometers, and water bottles were used as incentive prizes for this challenge.
Mutual of Omaha also encourages employees to use a tunnel between the two buildings on their main campus for walking breaks. To make this area more visually appealing, they painted flashy colors on the walls and put up inspiring and interesting posters.
During the 15-month StepWell program, the company as a whole logged over 5 million steps. The StepWell program is being repeated in 2006, but the length of the program is shorter and may feature a team element.
Fitness Center
The Mutual of Omaha fitness center is open from 5:30am-7pm and offers over 35 group fitness classes per week. These classes include step, yoga, stretching, Pilates, cardio-kickboxing, martial arts/self-defense, and core conditioning. The classes are offered at all times of the day – before work, during lunch time, afternoons, and after work.
Membership in the center costs $15 per month for employees, retirees, and their spouses, and $25 per month for contractors who are working at the site temporarily.
Approximately 28 percent of employees at the home office are members. Enrollment has managed to remain steady even as the company has decreased its workforce. In fact, membership is up 2 percent in the last year.
The company offers a number of challenges to encourage use of their facility. Here are just a few of the creative ideas:
It is up to each individual manager to determine when it is acceptable for employees to be away from their desk to use the fitness center. If the employee spends their day answering claims/calls or processing claims, they do not usually have the flexibility to go exercise during the day — they go before or after work or during their lunch break.
The company is fortunate enough to have “flex time” that can start as early as 6:30am, so theoretically a worker could start his or her day early and then finish the day with an afternoon workout or vice versa.
Fitness center membership is available to employees and their spouses, retirees and their spouses, and even contractors and their sponsors, including facilities staff and visiting consultants. Many of the senior managers utilize the center.
The wellness staff requires employees to attend a fitness equipment orientation for all participants. The orientation gives the participants a chance to familiarize themselves with policies, equipment and services of the wellness center.
The wellness staff collects a wealth of data to identify the success or failures of their various programs — they estimate that they conduct some type of pre- and post- test for 95 percent of the programs.
Financial metrics
Health metrics
Across the company, they held seven wellness incentive programs in 2005 (which ranged from six weeks to 15 months in length), including X-Tri, Husker Days, Weight No More 2004–2005, Weight No More 2005–2006, and ExerciseWise (spring & fall sessions).
The results included:
Strengths
Innovative Ideas
Alignment of the corporate wellness program with corporate goals and ideals. For example, at Mutual of Omaha, their programs are based primarily on the corporate values of
“financial discipline” and “accountable workforce.” They believe that keeping employees fit and healthy is a large part of keeping them engaged and “accountable.”
The company has decorated the tunnels that go between the various parts of the campus and encourages employees to walk the tunnels on their break. For a cold weather climate like Omaha, this is an innovative way to provide individual or group walking even in the winter.
The company collects baseline and follow-up data with participants in nearly every one of their wellness challenges, allowing them to see results of their programming and tailor future efforts to meet the needs of employees.
The fitness center has classes at all times of the day. The company’s lunch break is 45 minutes, so 30, 35, and 40 minute classes allow people to work fitness into their schedules.
The fitness website and library are comprehensive and detailed, offering both fitness members and non-members access to a variety of credible health information. This material includes calculating BMI, finding target heart rate, daily health tips, and their e-newsletter, called Noon News. Noon News is updated on the site and published in hard copy every work day at noon.
Lessons Learned
Contact information
Wellness Program Director
Email: Chris.Harter@mutualofomaha.com
Phone: 402-351-2558
