Opportunities to improve cardiovascular health in the new American workplace

Network spillover effects associated with the ChooseWell 365 workplace randomized controlled trial to promote healthy food choices

Food choices are closely linked to culture, social relationships, and health. Because many adults spend up to half their time at work, the workplace provides a venue for changing population health-related behaviors and norms. It is unknown whether the effects of a workplace intervention to improve health behaviors might spread beyond participating employees due to social influence. ChooseWell 365 was a randomized controlled trial testing a 12-month healthy eating intervention grounded in principles of behavioral economics. This intervention leveraged an existing cafeteria traffic-light labeling system (green = healthy; red = unhealthy) in a large hospital workplace and demonstrated significant improvements in healthy food choices by employees in the intervention vs. control group. The current study used data from over 29 million dyadic purchasing events during the trial to test whether social ties to a trial participant co-worker (n = 299 intervention, n = 302 control) influenced the workplace food choices of non-participants (n = 7900). There was robust evidence that non-participants who were socially tied to more intervention group participants made healthier workplace food purchases overall, and purchased a greater proportion of healthy (i.e., green) food and beverages, and fewer unhealthy (i.e., red) beverages and modest evidence that the benefit of being tied to intervention participants was greater than being tied to control participants. Although individual-level effect sizes were small, a range of consistent findings indicated that this light-touch intervention yielded spillover effects of healthy eating behaviors on non-participants. Results suggest that workplace healthy eating interventions could have population benefits extending beyond participants.

Workplace Health Promotion, Employee Wellbeing and Loyalty during Covid-19 Pandemic—Large Scale Empirical Evidence from Hungary

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become an innovative strategic management tool of socially and environmentally conscious business organizations in the 21st century. Although external CSR activities are better researched, firms’ internal CSR activities such as workplace health promotion and its impact on employee wellbeing are less understood, especially during a pandemic where job security is relatively lower in many sectors of employment. Additionally, wellbeing and good health have been recognized as important targets to achieve as part of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 3. Therefore, this study investigates the relationship between health-related work benefits and employee wellbeing, satisfaction and loyalty to their workplace. Large scale survey research was performed with responses from 537 employees in Hungary and 16 hypotheses were tested. Data analysis and path modelling using PLS-SEM (Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling) reveal two-layers of factors that impact employee wellbeing, satisfaction and loyalty. We term this as ‘internal locus of control’ and ‘external locus of control’ variables. Internal locus of control variables such as mental and emotional health leads to wellbeing at the workplace but do not directly impact employee satisfaction and loyalty. In contrast, external locus of control factors such as healthcare support leads to wellbeing, satisfaction and loyalty. Employer commitment to healthcare support system is found pertinent especially during the pandemic. We discover wellbeing as a unique standalone construct in this study, which is vital as is it formed by mental and emotional wellbeing of employees, albeit not a determinant of employee workplace satisfaction and loyalty. We theorize workers’ self-reliance and preservation as possible explanations to the disassociation between employee wellbeing and loyalty to workplace during times of crisis and the pandemic.