A Message from Jerry

Welcome to our fall edition of HERO on Health.  David Ballard, PsyD, Assistant Executive Director at the American Psychological Association, and HERO board member has written a very insightful column on the development of a psychologically healthy workplace. This approach incorporates not only the dimension of physical health and mental health, but broadens the discussion to include employee involvement, safety, employee growth and development, work-life balance and employee recognition as important to achieving this objective.

The 2012 HERO Forum for Employee Health Management Solutions, held October 2-4, was a great success. We thank the outstanding faculty of keynotes, panelists, and workshop presenters for their highly informative, thought provoking presentations. Certainly the topic of building employee performance through improved health was a key topic, along with excellent discussions on program sustainability, communication, branding, creating a supportive culture and the appropriate use of incentives. Please put September 24-26, 2013, on your calendar to join us for the next HERO Forum to be held in Orlando, FL, at the Disneyworld Hilton Hotel.

The 2012 Annual Report on the HERO Employee Health Management Best Practice Scorecard in Collaboration with Mercer was released during the Forum. It is free and available on the HERO website. read more...
Quite a few organizations have now completed the Scorecard for their second or third time which provides us an opportunity to track what improvements are happening in these programs as they address gaps identified in their first Scorecard report. Over 800 companies have now reported at least once, providing a good body of data to do research. In fact, a project is now under way under the direction of Ron Goetzel and his team, working with the HERO Research Study Subcommittee, to analyze this self-reported data in more detail.

Thank you to our many HERO Think Tank members who convened the day before the Forum to discuss three topics: building a strong business case for sustainable employee health management programs; in doing so how do we focus our organizations on health and performance and get beyond simply cost control; and third, how to build a culture that trusts leadership and is open, honest and enables an organization to move in the direction of improving health without creating cynicism and backlash. Great questions which we will share some of our members’ thoughts on in future editions of HERO on Health.

Congratulations and our deep thanks to Bill Whitmer, Co-Founder of HERO for his vision and tenacity and great skill in building this organization.  Bill announced his retirement from HERO effective September 30, 2012.  He has been a leader in the field for many years.  All of us, his many friends and admirers wish him great health and happiness.  Thanks Bill for all you have contributed to moving the acceptance and science of health management forward. 
Keep moving forward,

Jerry