Although this podcast interview is about Marketing and in particular, Word of Mouth Marketing, Geno Church opens up about a recent diagnosis with Type 2 Diabetes. He talks about the judgement and stigma that comes along with diabetes and how the food, celebrations and travel at work affect him.

Geno Church is the Word of Mouth Inspiration Officer at Brains on Fire. Brains on Fire is a tribe of passionate humans and creative rebels who get out of bed each day on a mission: to help their clients become stories people want to be a part of.

Around the 13-minute mark, Geno talks about Word of Mouth Marketing and how it starts with people not tactics or campaigns. In essence, whoever tells their story best wins. 

Geno talks about the importance of employers paying attention to their employees being brand ambassadors and how to empower them to have a conversation on your behalf.

He tells us the signs you are starting to create a word of mouth wellness movement and leaves us with his advice on how to get employees involved in their health.

Love them or hate them, wellness vendors are common in the employer market. There are a ton of wellness vendors out there and chances are your employer is currently using one or has used one in the past. Often wellness vendors are seen as filling a needed gap but how do you wade through all of your options?

There are so many of them it’s hard to keep track and understand the key value propositions of each company. The standard process for employers selecting a wellness vendor is a very painful process, where there’s a long set of questions the vendor completes and an employer or consultant tries to compare each one and make a recommendation. If you’ve ever done this it’s a truly painful process that today’s guest set out to solve.

In this episode, I talk to Joe Miller. Joe ran a wellness company from 2003 to 2013 and felt that as a vendor that the RFP process didn't tell the whole story of what his company did. Also, he realized the process brokers/consultants were using to keep up with wellness vendors was inefficient. Joe left that company to start the Wellness Institute.

Joe describes his company as the Match.com or eHarmony of vendors, using a matching survey with 20 questions including goals, message, philosophies, and demographics.

In this episode, Joe and I talk about:

• How the vendors aren't moving as fast as the market wants it to.
• What an employer should look for when selecting a wellness vendor.
• The key things to do to create a successful partnership
• His advice for vendors to distinguish themselves from other vendors

There's so much to know about the many different laws and regulations surrounding worksite wellness programs. To help us work through the many nuances of the laws, I brought on Attorney Barbara Zabawa, owner of the Center for Health & Wellness Law, LLC.

You almost have to sit down with a pen and paper for this podcast because there's a lot of caveats and scenarios that you'll need to consider, especially if you are collecting health information (think Health Assessment and biometrics), offering an outcomes based program or offering incentives.

I start off asking some pretty basic questions to set the groundwork for the conversation. Barbara starts off explaining that the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) is the federal agency that enforces the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).

Barbara then breaks down the EEOC's final wellness rules in May 2016, what an employer should consider when collecting health info, the first question employers should ask when designing a wellness program and the tobacco penalty limit.

If I asked you the #1 source of stress in your lives, what would you say?

A recent article I read, says 83% of workers say they’re stressed about their jobs, nearly 50 percent say work-related stress is interfering with their sleep, and 60 percent use their smartphones to check in with work outside of normal working hours.

That’s why I brought on today’s guest, Brian Luke Seaward. Brian Luke Seaward is a renowned and respected international expert in the fields of stress management, mind-body-spirit healing and health promotion. 

In this episode we discuss stress in the workplace, mindfulness, meditation, healthy boundaries and digital toxicity. 

Towards the end, he talks about compassion fatigue of caregivers. So, if you’re in the caregiving industry, like nursing, nursing aids/assistants, etc. you’ll find some helpful tips.

A common statement you may hear from your employees about your wellness program is "but I didn't know". You may chock that up to the employee just making an excuse because you feel you've communicated clearly. Besides, you're sick of communicating the message so everyone must be aware, right?

In a survey by Prescient Digital Media, only 13% of employees reported participating in their intranet daily—31% said they never do. If you are using your intranet as your sole communication method, you are missing a large part of your employees. That's why it's so important to get your wellness communications right.

What's the point in investing your time and money on a wellness initiative if no one knows about it? That's why I'm spending another podcast on effective communications.

This episode features Wendy Haan. Wendy is a worksite health and wellness marketing professional with more than 20 years of communications experience. 

Wendy oversees all of the content and inbound marketing for Hope Health, providing cutting-edge tips and information to wellness professionals and committees on the latest in wellness communication trends. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• Tells us about Hope Health and what she does for them
• Common barriers she sees when working with clients
• The reasons why communication is so important when it comes to worksite wellness (and life in general)
• Why you shouldn't solely rely on email (or Open Enrollment) to communicate.

Wendy walks us through the 8 Secrets to Effective Employee Communication and tells us the #1 thing you need to do to get employees to read your communications.

I hope we can all agree you need to make sure wellness programs are adequately communicated so how are strategic communications different?  Strategic communications are one that educate, motivate, market and build trust. They are also designed to achieve well-defined objectives.

Think about the last wellness communication you put together. If it was a laundry list of what your employees had to do, then that’s not exactly a strategic communication.

Mark Dessauer is an expert in strategic communications and VP of Learning at Spitfire Strategies. Although Mark has always been in communications, he worked at Active Living by Design (ALBD) for over 10 years and offers his expertise around the built environment and culture.

In this episode, Mark and I discuss:

• Barriers to effectively communicating with employees
• How wellness can be infused into the culture
• Point of decision prompts to help your employees make healthy choices

Mark answers the questions:

• How do you figure out on who to focus your communications?
• What to do with those employees who aren't engaged in your wellness program?

Finally, Mark gives us his tangible tip to effectively communicate their wellness initiative.

With all of the talk about the culture of organizations, I wanted to talk with someone who has experience in improving organizational culture and not just around wellness or well-being.

Today I talk to Michael Sabbag, President of Partners4Performance. His career has included HR leadership in many organizations as well as a consultant to help create great places to work.

Here’s a spoiler alert – Michael is offering my listeners a free 30-minute consultation all around culture. Details are at the end so I encourage you to hear what Michael has to say.

Today we talk about:

• The forces that are driving attention to company culture
• What happens to companies who don’t focus on culture
• What a leader can do to make a difference
• Michael tell us how often he sees wellness or well-being infused within a company’s strategy.

Michael defines culture as behaviors that drive the experiences in the workplace and walks us through the elements of workplace culture.

He tells us why being a workplace maverick may not be a good thing and gives good advice for what leaders can do to enhance the well-being of their team.

Finally, Michael gives his viewpoint of where wellness falls within most corporate strategies.

Today I talk with Lindsay Boccardo. Lindsay is a nationally recognized Millennial expert, working with young talent and the organizations who employ them.

You may be wondering…what do millennials have to do with wellness? First of all, If you are planning any worksite wellness initiatives, you need to consider what your employees want. Millennials already form 25% of the workforce in the US and by 2020, millennials will form 50% of the global workforce. So, it would make sense to learn about what will be the bulk of your future workforce.

Secondly, a big part of liking your job comes from good relationships with your co-workers and managers. If you don’t take the time to understand how the different generations like to work and receive feedback, then it will be harder to avoid relationship conflicts.

In this podcast Lindsay and I discuss:

• the multi-generational workforce
• what's going to happen when Baby Boomers retire
• the characteristics of a millennials

Lindsay describes the conflict  she sees in the workplace such as expectations on feedback, all life balance and freedom in how and where to do work.

She tells us what employers should consider when attracting and retaining millennials and why money isn't the answer for millennials.

Lindsay also tells us how she coaches millennials to change in their thinking.

Evin Cole is Director of Strategic Customer Engagement at Kaiser Permanente and is also a founding executive member of Wellness Underground.

In this episode, we talk about:

• What her and her team see when they consult with employers on wellness
• Why employers can't force employees to change their behavior
• Where Evin would like to see wellness go and the ROI conversation
• Her role in Wellness Underground and how she was nervous about coming out as the co-creator
• What's wrong and right with the wellness industry

Evin has a great approach she calls "wellness by subtraction" built on the concept of making life easier for employees and not harder.

Finally, part of Evin's role is onsite clinics and she gives us the main reasons employers buy into them.

Al’s been a very vocal critic of the wellness industry and certain people in it.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How Al got into the disease management and wellness fields.
• What caused him to get blacklisted from industry conferences.
• Why it's cool to like Al Lewis again.
• What's wrong and right with the wellness industry.

Al also names companies and vendors that are "doing" wellness right and how Al and WELCOA mended fences due to Ryan Picarella's leadership.

We talk Quizzify and why Al wants employees to cheat when using Quizzify.

Finally, we end on the future of worksite wellness and Al gives his tangible tips for employers when starting a wellness program.

Although I don’t always agree with Al’s tactics, he has some valid points to his criticism that’s worth a listen.