Word: health
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Westfall-Lake and "wellness supervisor" Jill Thieman have spearheaded a pilot project at a gas-gathering and -processing operation in the Four Corners. Some 400 shiftworkers, including field technicians, plant operators, maintenance workers and office staff, receive information about health and safety via an Intranet site, corporate fairs, family events and special classes. Employees can use company-owned vehicles to car-pool (thus minimizing driving fatigue), take time off while at work to exercise briefly on treadmills and stationary bicycles, and use light boxes that are designed to suppress melatonin, which induces sleep. So far, a third of those involved...
From Silicon Valley to Motown, from assembly line to PC workstation, corporate employers are taking charge of their workers' health as never before. Company doctors have splinted the broken bones of factory workers for generations, and personnel managers long ago began offering vaccinations. What's new is that employers in every industry are injecting themselves into issues that seem to have as much to do with lifestyle choices as with traditional medicine. In a U.S. Health and Human Services survey this year, 95% of U.S. companies with more than 50 employees said they had taken action to improve workers' health...
...efforts are a hit with employees. In booming high-tech fields, where companies are looking for every edge in the competition for recruits, a glistening, state-of-the-art fitness center can clinch a contract. Few employees are worried their bosses will use health data against them, says United Auto Workers spokesman Reg McGhee. In fact, his union has even agreed to pay part of the cost of on-the-job health promotions...
Even more than aiming to attract talent, executives say they're focused on the bottom line. "Our investment is in keeping health-care costs down," says D'Ann Whitehead, preventive-health-services manager at Chevron. A study by the MEDSTAT Group consulting firm found that over the past eight years, Chevron had held medical expenses flat and slashed worker sick days by using everything from massage to smoking restrictions...
...also see such programs as a way to eke a few more years of productivity from their graying work force. To cut back on sprains and strains on its bottling lines, Coors has introduced stretch breaks, hired ergonomics experts to redesign machines, built on-site gyms and even corporate health clinics, where employees and their families can be treated for any routine medical problem, work related...