Dear TheySaidWhat Nation, 

Exactly as we predicted, today EEOC just OK’ed modest incentives to get the COVID vaccine. Specific words:

“If employers set up a system in which they administer the vaccine themselves on a voluntary basis, businesses can also offer employees incentives — be they perks or penalties — so long as they are “not so substantial as to be coercive.”

A summary of the EEOC’s position on COVID and employment can be found here. https://bit.ly/3fYvmEq.  They kinda “buried the lede” in that you have to scroll way down to find that quote.

Meanwhile, there is still no safe harbor, and won’t be, for substantial incentives and penalties for clinical wellness programs. To learn how to easily navigate this new EEOC normal, contact al@quizzify.com. (Our shattered feelings will recover if you don’t reach out to us until Tuesday.)

Streaks are made to be broken, and Wellness360 looks ready to dethrone the three-time Deplorables Award winner, Wellsteps.

Their recent blog post was headlined on Linkedin: “Here are 6 simple, yet crucial corporate wellness challenges ideas for 2021.” I’m going to take a screenshot…

I clicked through to their blog post on the “6 simple, yet crucial wellness challenges ideas.”  I have quoted excerpts here with no words changed, starting with the headline. Needless to say, these excerpts are generously annotated.

• Um, how many fingers do you have on each hand?
• That’s great for “working employees.” But what “challenges ideas” do you propose for non-working employees?
• I loves your grammar.

“According to a CDC report, even before the pandemic started, almost 80% of Americans were getting the recommended amount of physical activity for the week. With the current remote working situation, the little physical activity that came from the daily commute, walks and talks at the workplace, lunch breaks, and other workplace culture traditions have come to a halt.”

• So only 20% of Americans were out of shape before the pandemic?
• I hadn’t realized that talking and lunch breaks were such a major source of physical activity.
• “The little physical activity…have come to a halt?” Is that why we need “challenges ideas”?

“Commuting, roaming around the office and other physical activities at the workplace helped employees take at least some steps in the whole day. Without those daily activities, the physical activity count has fallen down the cliff.”

• Commuting is how I used to keep in shape too: steering, shifting gears, and yelling at the WHDH 850 Sportstalk guy.
• The syntactical activity count has fallen down the cliff as well.
• “Roaming around the office?” More on this later.

“Hold a Wellbeing Hydration Challenge. A male adult in the US must consume at least 15 cups of water daily, and a woman must drink a minimum of 11 cups. Many studies show that 75% of American adults suffer from chronic dehydration, causing headaches, nausea, fatigue, and lack of concentration, impacting employee health, productivity, and overall wellbeing.”

• Is the winner of the challenge the first person to die from overhydration?
• Can you cite one of these “many studies”? 
• Will someone please give those 75% a drink of water?
• You were drinking this much water at work??? No wonder you needed to “roam around the office.”

“Employers can…also encourage sharing recipes for hydration like cinnamon water, green tea variants, and more to make sure they keep water healthily without…preservatives.”

• Will you please share your “recipe” for cinnamon water? I forgot what the ingredients are.
• I want to “keep my water healthily” but apparently the government is spiking our water with preservatives. Write your Congressman!
• Wouldn’t those “green tea variants” keep me up at night and wouldn’t those 15 cups of water wake me up once I finally got to sleep?  Oh, wait, I forgot you also offer…

“Better Sleep Wellbeing Challenges. Lack of sleep can cause fatigue, disturb mood, affect decision-making skills, and loss of concentration…The wellness program administrators can assign better sleep wellness challenges in which employees have to track their sleep hours every day on the corporate wellness platform. Those who seem to have trouble sleeping well can be offered coaching or other supporting resources to improve their sleeping habits.”

• Being “assigned” to “have to track…sleep hours every day on the corporate wellness platform” sounds like a great way to relieve the stress that keeps me up at night.
• Wouldn’t the “coaching or other supporting resource” tell me to stop drinking so much water and green tea?

With this kind of advice, it’s lucky that their “sixth” recommendation is:

Tums asked: “Who says medicine has to taste bad to be good?”

Symms said: “At Symms, an educated consumer is our best customer.”

And Grey Poupon’s memorable: “Ah, the finer things in life. Happily some are affordable.”*

Our 1:00 PM May 12 webinar combines all three. https://bit.ly/3eOLhEC
Turns out that knowledge is more fun (Tums), and more effective (Symms) than cajoling, bribing or fining employes into eating more broccoli. It can also cost less per employee than a year’s supply of mustard. (If not, then close enough.)

So why not learn some easy behavior changes you didn’t already know? Last month you learned that preemies are predictable. The month before that you learned that cavities don’t have to be filled. Join us May 12 at 1:00 PM for more of the Greatest Hits of health literacy. https://bit.ly/3eOLhECAl Lewis

*Not to distract anyone from registering, but that clip above is the best mustard commercial, possibly the best commercial, of all time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JJbwlEySDM