Momentum to keep moving

UP TO SPEED: Through a series of wellness, nutritional and fitness initiatives, CVS Health has a healthier workforce, and a better handle on health care costs. Employees training for the CVS Downtown 5K at company headquarters in Woonsocket are, from left, Sheila Bowe, and Carmen and Les Steinbrecher / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
UP TO SPEED: Through a series of wellness, nutritional and fitness initiatives, CVS Health has a healthier workforce, and a better handle on health care costs. Employees training for the CVS Downtown 5K at company headquarters in Woonsocket are, from left, Sheila Bowe, and Carmen and Les Steinbrecher / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

With encouragement from corporate headquarters in Woonsocket, dozens of CVS Health Corp.’s CVS/pharmacy store-setup workers across the country are stubbing out cigarettes, hitting treadmills and choosing water instead of soda for the benefit of their health.

The chief – but not the only – cheerleader of the store-setup team fitness challenge is Scott Finestone, the store-setup department’s director. The company’s concern and support for the health of its 125,000 employees is “absolutely the right thing to do,” Finestone said. “Finding people in a large corporation who care about the people who work for them is very unique.”

The setup department’s fitness effort began late last year, about the time that CVS began shifting the emphasis in some of its retail stores to encourage healthy eating. The stores began offering fresh fruit and healthy foods like yogurt, hummus and hard-boiled eggs in its coolers, and moving candy away from the high-profile check-out lanes.

When the health challenge started, the 82 or so people of the store-setup department “were skeptical that it was going to be easy to keep the momentum going,” Finestone said. But managers kept encouraging employees, and the results show in the impressively high numbers of pounds lost and cigarettes discarded.

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A special problem for workers of the store-setup group, Finestone said, is that people travel extensively, often spending four to five days a week on the road and in hotels. That entails a lot of sitting in airports, planes or cars. During or at the end of a typical 10-hour workday, the easiest option is to grab fast food. Nonetheless, many of the workers in the department are now doing things like reaching for bottled water instead of soda, and getting onto treadmills or sidewalks before or after their workday, even while traveling.

Tangible rewards for taking part in company-sponsored fitness programs include the opportunity to win CVS Health values-in-action points as well. By reporting their participation in exercise programs, health seminars, and so on, employees can win rewards points. Finestone earned himself an iPad, for example.

CVS Health’s program for employees, WellRewards, encourages participation by employees along with their family members. Offerings include preventative screenings, flu shots, smoking-cessation assistance, weight management, health coaching, health management for rare conditions, and maternity management and care.

Through reporting and study, “We’ve learned that the most prevalent lifestyle risks among our colleagues are poor nutrition, high stress and obesity, and we use this data to drive the direction of our overall colleague health care strategy,” said Candace Jodice, senior director of benefits strategy. 

The company is now offering a physical-activity challenge, a weight-loss challenge and a nutrition challenge. Employees who participate in these programs earn incentives.

Jodice said, “We are also evaluating a stress and resiliency program to help colleagues address and cope with both personal and professional stressors.”

Measurable positive results of the WellRewards program are starting to reveal themselves. Using analytical tools, CVS Health has observed slight improvements in blood pressure, physical activity and tobacco use among employees.

“Surprisingly,” Jodice said, “a good number of colleagues and their spouses had no idea they were at risk prior to the program and have expressed gratitude to CVS Health for caring about their health.”

The efforts kept the company’s health care expenses flat from 2014 to 2015. These savings have allowed CVS Health to invest in some plan improvements, such as covering brand insulin at 100 percent for diabetics, Jodice said. 

Continuing the in-house programs to improve employees’ health behaviors “will allow us to continue to see lower increases than national market trend,” Jodice said.

Ultimately, she said, “We know that colleagues are our most important asset.”

The best employee health and wellness programs usually consider employees’ emotional and mental health and family well-being. Finestone can attest to this concern by CVS Health. He was hired by the company six years ago, just before the busy Christmas season, and almost immediately had to request a two-month leave to be with his 14-year-old son, who was then entering hospice after a nine-year battle with cancer. This was in Florida, a right-to-work state, where the company could easily have told Finestone it could not give that much leeway to a brand-new employee.

Nevertheless, Finestone said, CVS gave him the leave promptly and helped him adapt to the workplace gradually and gently after his return to the job.

“It speaks volumes to me that the company would do something like that,” he said. n

A Healthy Thought:

‘A good number of colleagues and their spouses had no idea they were at risk prior to the program.’

Candace Jodice, senior director of benefits strategy, CVS Health

Number of Employees: 125,000

CEO (or equivalent): Larry J. Merlo, president and CEO

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