Convenient health
BCHD also looked deeper into their employees’ problems and conducted a series of workshops to help them cope with issues outside of work. They were able identify specific stress factors and scheduled workshops to focus on these issues. Immediately, BCHD leadership realized that one of the main worries for employees was money. So they hired a financial services company to come in to educate them on better managing their finances. They also had a meditation and stress reduction 4-week series and a BCHD dietitian gave advice about mindful eating.
The organization added healthy food to the vending machines and encouraged employees to share healthy recipes and food.
“If employees have a choice between healthy and unhealthy food, often they’ll choose what’s in front of them even if it’s unhealthy,” said Blevins. “What if we made the healthy food the default? That could change a lot.”
They also started a community garden for employees who live in apartments and don’t have the space to garden at home.
“It’s a really nice place to go when you feel like your head’s going to pop off,” said BCHD Accounting Assistant Judy Anderson about the garden. “It’s nice to decompress and makes you feel better.”
For Burden, the garden was an easy change. They simply turned a useless cemented area into a garden space, and the employees took over from there.
“This is an unusual opportunity to help people,” said Burden. “It’s so worth it, every little piece helps. Even if you spend just two hours of your time to research this, the return would be substantial. People want to work in these environments and they tend to stay. Employee turnover is expensive.”
The City of Redondo Beach became a designated Blue Zones Worksite this past August, but they were working up to the honor for more than a year.
“The city has been very active from the beginning with BCHD on embracing the concepts of Vitality City and Blue Zones in general,” said Redondo Beach City Manager Bill Workman. “We’ve taken active steps to integrate our practices as a worksite… and improve the quality of life and the health and longevity of our residents and citizens.”
Because of the push to become designated a Blue Zones Worksite, Redondo Beach hosted the first health fair in 20 years for their employees. They have also seen an increase in employees biking to work and have had several lunch time cooking classes and are looking at replacing the city vending machines with healthier options.
“It’s sort of different from other programs that have been bantered about for years,” said Workman. “This program has measures that are action based, and the more we become involved, the more we improve the health, well-being and longevity of our employees and people in the community.”
