All's Not Well That Ends With Wellness

Boss Abele Squarepants

Boss Abele is desperately trying to garner some positive attention to himself, even if it means issuing meaningless press releases about failing programs and calling them successes:

On April 23, Milwaukee County will receive an award from the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) for its approach in developing programs that improve the health and wellbeing of County employees. WELCOA is widely recognized and highly regarded for its expertise and innovative approach to workplace wellness initiatives.

"We don't leave workplace wellness to chance," said County Executive Chris Abele. "We believe that providing employees with wellness opportunities not only improves personal health and wellbeing, but increases employee job satisfaction and morale as well. I am incredibly proud of these efforts and want to thank all of our employees whose participation makes this award possible. Creating a healthy workplace is good for employees and also leads to better outcomes for our community."

The wellness program at Milwaukee County was designed and implemented with best practices based on what's worked well in other organizations. Milwaukee County is being recognized after less than two years of operation and is well on its way to being a leader in how it engages employees around their wellness.

His shining example that it's working is that 300 people took fruit baskets. That's less than 7% of the county workforce. If he held himself to the same standards that he holds the workers, the only reward that would be given is a pink slip.

What Abele is trying to do is give workers incentive to stay with the county without actually paying them or giving them solid benefits.  What good is a wellness program when the workers or insurance poor and cannot afford to address any health concerns that might be discovered?

To make things worse, Abele is also failing at the worker attraction/retention aspect of things.  People are continuing to leave in droves, including division heads and his chief budgeteer, Josh Fudge, who announced on Thursday that he is leaving the county, even after Abele gave him a promotion and raise.  (At least that means no more Fudged budget numbers!)

If Abele wanted to have something to brag about, perhaps he should put his focus on running the county with common sense instead of cherry picked "best practices."  But then again, that would mean respecting and working with the employees, which is anathema to the boy prince.

Penn State's Wellness Plan

Another growing trend in the anti-worker movement in Corporate America is the invasive nature of wellness plans that employers are forcing on their workers.  Penn State is just one of the latest entities that had to deal with this (emphasis mine):

At issue was an online questionnaire the university unveiled in July as part of a new wellness plan. The plan was aimed at cutting the institution's health-care costs, which have risen by 20 percent over the last two years, to more than $217-million in the 2013-14 academic year.

Among other questions, the online survey asked employees about their plans to become pregnant, about how frequently they drank too much alcohol, and about whether they had experienced problems with violence, depression, or a divorce or separation.

The questions drew loud objections from both inside the university and out. Professors said the university was compelling employees to reveal private information or face a $100-a-month fine.

[...]

The university said that while it would drop the $1,200 annual fine for those who failed to answer the questionnaire, it could not afford to delay the wellness plan for a year. It will still ask employees to complete the survey and to participate in the plan's two other elements.

They ask employees to pledge to have a complete physical examination in the next year and to undergo health screenings to measure waist size, blood pressure, and other indicators. Those screenings are being performed this fall on the Penn State system's campuses by the university's health-care provider.

It's not coincidental that the health care provider. The are manipulating the situation so that they can control the employees on medical decisions that should be between the worker and his or her doctor.

Furthermore, it is a sign of just how out of control that whole health care field has become.  Instead of penalizing the employees and trying to coerce them into programs where the motives are more geared towards control of our lives in the guise of cost saving, the employers should find ways to control the real issue in health care costs - pure corporate greed.