Success Stories > Alberta Blue Cross: Balancing Work and Life

Like many working parents, Jen had so many demands on her time that exercise was rarely in the cards. Then she took a job at Alberta Blue Cross, an employer that supports physical activity at work. In six years, her activity quotient has skyrocketed.

First came a few noon-hour fitness classes, then participation in Corporate Challenge, then mountain biking and cycling in the company-sponsored Ride of Hope. Onsite bike storage enables Jen to cycle the 26-kilometre round trip between work and home. The company’s flexible hours and onsite change rooms with showers make it easy for her to exercise during the workday.

“Alberta Blue Cross has had a huge role in transforming my life,” the 31-year-old says. “It’s really given me a well-rounded lifestyle. Along the way, I even stopped smoking.”

Jen grew up in a sporting family, but readily admits it took support from her employer to reclaim physical activity as single parenthood brought other priorities to the fore. “With a daughter in grade four, it would be a challenge to get fitness into my daily routine if I worked elsewhere,” she says. “Being able to exercise during the day makes a huge difference to a person’s energy level. It just means I feel better all day.”

Alberta Blue Cross supports not only physical health but the psychological, environmental and social sides of wellness. While a $250 a year Benefit for Life account helps pay Jen’s gym membership and hockey registration fees, financial support for lifestyle courses enables her to pursue such interests as playing guitar and speaking French.

Given its range of initiatives, perhaps it’s no surprise that Alberta Blue Cross received the 2006 Premier’s Award of Distinction for Healthy Workplaces. In accepting that award, Human Resources Vice-President Susan Adam reflected that the focus on employee health and work-life balance, which stretches back three decades, is helping to make Alberta Blue Cross an employer of choice in a hot labour market. “It’s nice to know that candidates are specifically seeking us out as an employer for whom they want to work.”

Nor is the vice-president alone in championing wellness and work-life balance. Enshrined as one of five Alberta Blue Cross corporate values, wellness enjoys strong personal commitment from senior managers, who not only fund the initiatives but participate themselves.

Employees are also making wellness a personal priority, says Corporate Communications Senior Manager Brian Geislinger, who says that participation rates reflect that fact. “Our noon hour fitness classes are often full, Corporate Challenge teams often need to hold tryouts or draws to deal with the overwhelming numbers signing up, our walking program has logged thousands of kilometres, our Benefit For Life program is used by hundreds of employees and reimburses thousands of dollars each year in fitness-related expenditures, and our noon-hour information sessions such as those on healthy menu choices are filled to overflowing.”

The company’s computer-assisted data entry unit, for example, shifted its absence and injury rates from the worst in the firm to the best in just one year by making significant workplace changes, e.g., adding ergonomic furniture and improved lighting and introducing fit breaks.

As a benefit carrier, Alberta Blue Cross knows that its customers benefit when they stay healthy. Knowing that, the company profiles its own wellness savings in the hope that customers will follow suit. “With the encouragement of Alberta Blue Cross, many group plan sponsors are now implementing incentive programs to promote health and fitness,” Brian Geislinger notes. “An ounce of prevention today can save benefit plan sponsors, plan participants (and our provincial health care system) hundreds of thousands of dollars in future costs.”

Jen, meanwhile, has her sights set on completing the Ironman Canada Triathlon in Penticton. Given her determination, coupled with the support of Alberta Blue Cross, she’s sure to be there.

Staying Well at Alberta Blue Cross: A Summary of Initiatives

• Benefit for Life: Fitness activity costs reimbursed up to $250 per employee per year.

• Daily fitness at work: Subsidized onsite fitness classes, fitness rooms with lockers and showers, bike lockups.

• Physical activity sponsorship: Employees regularly sponsored for events such as the Kids for Cancer Ride of Hope and the Cross Cancer Institute Row for Life festival. Employee recreational sports teams and activities such as a company-wide walking program. Outstanding participation in Edmonton and area Corporate Challenge.

• Pedometer walking program: Hundreds of employees joined a fun walking program in 2005. Staff used company-provided pedometers to track their mileage on a special website that included a map of Alberta showing the total distance walked each week.

• Focus on healthy eating: Regular noon-hour presentations on nutrition and diet, healthy food at company and staff functions and events, reimbursement for participation in weight management programs.

• Comprehensive health risk self-assessment: Free health checks with registered nurses, an online health risk assessment inventory and follow-up wellness sessions on a variety of topics offered to all employees in 2006.

• Comprehensive benefit plan: Includes support for mental health, regular sessions on health-related topics, annual free flu shots and wellness clinics focusing on such conditions as diabetes, stress and hypertension.

• Monthly transportation allowance: Encourages staff to consider alternative forms of transportation, from public transit and carpooling to walking and cycling.

• Ergonomics: Considers all factors related to workplace environment from keyboard, computer monitor and chair positioning to proper lighting, ambient sound control and comfort-inducing heating, cooling and ventilation. A newsletter, Ergonomically Speaking, addresses employee ergonomic issues.

• Life balance: Strong support for flexible hours, job sharing and telecommuting reflect high corporate priority on family and work-life balance. Other initiatives include Earned Days Off, Family Care Days, Kids’ Days at work and family-friendly social events.

• Employee surveys: Administered every few years, internal surveys consistently reveal high employee interest in maintaining a healthy and balanced lifestyle and exceptionally high satisfaction with the relationship between home and work.

• Reaching scattered worksites: Human Resources staff responsible for wellness programs use the employee newsletter, intranet and e-mail to reach workers in seven offices, some of whom work part-time and non-standard shifts.