Mark Novelli just lost 35 pounds. He says it is all due to colleagues and his boss’s boss.
Novelli, 55, a maintenance worker at a MyWegmansConnect supermarket in western New York, attended one of the company’s optional health checks a few months ago and received a strong warning from an in-house pharmacist after discovering that her pressure arterial was out of control was high “at 180/120.
In the following months, Wegman’s nutritionists and his own doctors advised Novelli on the best way to reduce their number. Now his blood pressure is much healthier at 119/79 and he says he controls his cholesterol thanks to monthly tests by the supermarket chain.
It is just a lifestyle amendment that Wegmans started for me, Novelli said. “I just needed help not to eat cake and pizza every day. It was big, now I’m medium or small. He says he only has one bar of chocolate per week.
Right things at the right time
A few years ago, Danny Wegman, CEO of Wegman, grandson of the network’s co-founder, decided to help the company’s approximately 45,000 employees maintain fitness and health. As a result, the 96-year-old supermarket chain, which had sales of $ 6.6 billion last year, now offers a variety of wellness programs, including training for blood pressure. and nutrition, as well as on-site yoga and Zumba courses.
It’s not uncommon for cash-rich tech giants like Google to offer wellness benefits to attract the most sought-after engineering talent. However, Waters, based in Gates, New York, is characterized by the fact that these types of benefits are offered to a more diverse workforce. Everyone from headquarters-based executives to paid employees has access to health tips and exercise programs.
Danny Wegman speaks openly about social responsibility, but the company’s efforts are also focused on results. Poor employee health can affect business and cost companies more than half a trillion dollars last year. Becky Lyons, director of health and wellness for Wegmans, told The Huffington Post that the company did not monitor the savings by improving employee health, but said: “We believe there is an impact.”
“I know it made a difference and I can prove it,” MyWegmansConnect said at an industry conference earlier this year on corporate wellness programs, Supermarket News said.
Between 2008 and 2013, the proportion of 44,000 Wegmans employees with high blood pressure increased from 24% to 14%, according to the company. Wegmans saw a similar decrease in the proportion of his workers with a high body mass index, a measure of body fat, over the same period.
