City, companies earn Well Workplace awards

FORT COLLINS – The city of Fort Collins earned a Gold Well Workplace award while Sample & Bailey CPAs and United Way of Fort Collins picked up Well Workplace awards during the Fort Collins Well City Initiative CEO and Business Leader Luncheon on July 31.

More than 100 people attended the event, held this year at The Neenan Co. offices. The Fort Collins Well City Initiative, launched in 2006, aims to enlist businesses and other employers in the city to adopt on-site wellness programs that improve employee health and the business’s bottom line.

Virginia Englert of the Poudre Valley Hospital Foundation and a representative of CanDo, the Coalition for Activity and Nutrition to Defeat Obesity, said Fort Collins is well on its way to becoming designated as a Well City under the “Well City USA” national program.

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“Our goal is to become a Well City by December 2009,” Englert said, adding that the city of Greeley is also pursuing the same designation.

The Well City designation requires the ongoing participation of at least 20 companies that have achieved the Well Workplace standards. Englert said there are currently about 25 companies with a total of just under 15,000 employees in the program. Anheuser-Busch earned a Gold Award last year, she said, and several other companies are working toward that goal.

Englert said while Colorado and Fort Collins are among the nation’s healthiest places, there are disturbing trends developing. About half of the adults in Fort Collins are considered overweight or obese and that trend is going up, she said.

Being involved in a work-based wellness program can save a business in many ways, she said, including less absenteeism, better employee morale, improved productivity and lower health insurance costs.

Chris Richmond of Flood and Peterson Insurance Co. said his employer, which has a self-funded health insurance plan, got involved in the Well City Initiative to improve productivity.

“We did not do this to lower our health-care costs,” he said. “We’re in it because it leads to increased productivity and very simply because we just believe it’s the right thing to do.”

Lynn Sanchez, wellness coordinator for the city of Fort Collins, said the Well City Initiative fits into the city’s mission of being the healthiest workplace in America. Sanchez said the city saved money on lower health-care claims last year as a result of its participation.

Colorado’s Lieutenant Governor Barbara O’Brien was the keynote speaker for the event. She praised the city for taking a lead in helping to make Colorado a healthier place to live and praised the Well City Initiative program.

“I think it’s the new frontier for health-care reform,” she said.

For more information on the Fort Collins Well City Initiative, call Englert at 970-495-7517 or visit www.CanDoOnline.org.