Are Your Employees in Good Enough Shape to Compete?...Are You?
I haven’t written a piece this long in a while but I am fired up about something…You and I both know that your company’s workforce is not in shape. It may not be top of mind in the leadership meetings or among the board of directors but you know, and you know it is affecting everything that goes on in your business, and you are not doing much if anything about it... maybe because your HR department tells you that you can’t.
If you don’t believe me then check in with your risk management group, ask them about the leading causes of absenteeism and on the job injury in your company. I’d be very surprised if you didn’t find that you have an ergonomic plague in your workplace, an inordinate number of injuries and absences related to back and other structural problems. These problems are there because your workforce is overweight and out of shape and aside from the burden this condition is putting on your healthcare costs it also affects the quality of work being done and the energy and creativity available from your workforce at any given time. This is a big deal and it is time we all fessed up and started dealing with it. It is people’s lives and livelihood that are at stake here.
I got rolling on this theme this past week as I finished reading ‘The Coming Jobs War’ by Gallup CEO Jim Clifton.
Clifton has a central thesis and he makes a strong and seriously analytical case for his argument. He makes the bold assertion that job creation and successful entrepreneurship are the world’s most pressing issues right now, outpacing runaway government spending, environmental degradation, and even the threat of global terrorism. “If countries fail at creating jobs,” says Clifton, “their societies will fall apart. Countries, and more specifically cities, will experience suffering, instability, chaos, and eventually revolution.”
Among other things Clifton states very bluntly in his book:
“A nation in which two-thirds of its constituents are obese or in poor health—or soon will be because of their weight, lack of exercise, addiction to cigarettes, bad diets and general low wellbeing –will never win the upcoming fight against global economic competitors. Workers will not be fit enough to win.”
I have a confession to make, although if you’ve ever looked at the picture associated with my blog this may not seem like much of an admission, I have been overweight bordering on obese for the past 30 years of my life. Three years ago with the continual and compassionate support of my wife Pat ("I didn’t marry you so you’d die on me!”) I finally stopped smoking, a habit that I had wrestled with on and off, mostly on, for over forty years. Within the past six months I have begun to successfully deal with my general physical condition. I have lost 50+ pounds and still have a ways to go to get to my goal. Believe it or not I got started with Zumba classes. Turns out it wasn’t so much the Zumba as the classes, I like exercising with other people. For years I have been one of those who made the New Year’s resolutions to lose weight and get fit several times each year only to find myself quickly falling back into old counterproductive patterns because they were simply more comfortable. In my early life, up to and into my thirties I was very athletic; I participated in a variety of sports and even ran marathons for a while. Then around the time I was 35 all that abruptly stopped and for nearly 30 years I simply indulged my appetites in the worst possible ways. It is really a boring story, yes I am a smart guy, I could see what was happening yet I did nothing to honestly step up and take care of myself. My attitude was that as long as I took care of my obligations to family and business I should be free to address my cravings. Like I said…boring.
And now for the first time on 30 years I am effectively, not easily, addressing my well being on a number of fronts. I am grateful to my wife Pat, once again the catalyst for me doing something about my health. Honestly she has had to be courageous, I have not been open to her coaching and she has had to put up with plenty of sharp rebukes from me for coaching when I wasn’t asking for it. I am pretty sure that without her support I would not be as far along as I am, and there is still a ways to go and many new habits to anchor in.
Now, what about your work environment? Jim Clifton states some very stark statistics in his book, among them the fact that currently only one-third of adult Americans are in shape. Another third are overweight and another third obese. Many of these people work for us and we care about them, not just as productive resources but as people and we are allowing them to do what I did to myself for many years, slowly kill myself. I hate to be that blunt but if you are not one of the overweight/unfit you cannot imagine how unhappy a place it is. I can honestly tell you that in all those 30 years there were only fleeting moments of happiness and a lot of self criticism for allowing myself to get in such bad shape. I am betting the people you work with and around who are well out of shape would tell you much the same if they felt safe enough. If you are one of the overweight you know exactly what I am talking about.
So I know this is a big request I am making. If you are currently working with someone who is overweight, obese or in some other way not taking care of their health ask them if you can talk about it. I know all the prohibitions against doing what I am asking but those have nothing to do with caring for your co-workers, they are designed to protect your employer from legal measures. If you are one of the overweight or obese or otherwise self harming folks ask for some help. These issues are almost always more than we can deal with by ourselves. My wife asks me every morning about my weight and if I don’t like what the scale says I am still liable to lie at first before going back and telling her the truth, but I want her to keep asking, I need her to keep asking.
