Health Links (HL): Why is the health and safety of your employees important to you?  

Wealth By Design (WBD): We take a holistic approach to our business of “taking a personal interest in your financial well-being”.  We have to live what we preach, teach and walk alongside clients with.  It is all about choices.  Making healthy choices in all areas of our lives is a core value of how we want to run our business and life to our fullest potential.

HL: What does your workplace health and safety program look like? Do you offer both components to employees? 

WBD: Primarily health as we work mostly with computers and in meetings with clients.  We are a small office and it is easy to hold one another accountable for maintaining health.  We take “mental health breaks” – go out for a walk, take intermittent breaks from our desks.  We schedule workouts into our weekly activities, including pilates, yoga, Zumba, or cross country skiing.  We encourage each other with healthy eating ideas.  We participate in a composting program that supports our community in environmental health.  We take a proactive stance in staying educated on our industry and creatively look for ways to serve our clients.  We bring healthy attitudes to work everyday and cultivate a culture of acceptance, trust and support.  Knowing that life throws curve balls at us in a variety of areas, we have to “choose” to deal with life in a positive way.   We have created fun, safe ways to talk about money with our clients.  This includes holding Wisdom, Women, Wealth and Wine events, and “walk and talk” with clients and staff instead of the traditional board room meetings. 

HL: How will you/do you know your program is successful? 

WBD: It will be reflected in job satisfaction,  autonomy for team members, and engagement with team members.  If we are working well together, enjoying the ride, running our business with integrity, and our clients receive value from what we do, the business thrives and we are happy – we are successful.

HL: What obstacles did you have to overcome to get your program started? How did you overcome them? 

WBD: Addressing old paradigms and being willing to take the time to create something new.  Working harder is not the answer.

HL: Does your health and safety program help give back to your community?

WBD: We provide time within the work day to do volunteer work. Primarily in the area of youth financial literacy programs with Junior Achievement and Youth Entity.  Volunteerism is also a core value for our individual families and is expressed outside of the office.

HL: What tip/advice would you give to a business that is considering starting a workplace health and safety program? 

WBD: It will benefit your bottom line!  It needs to be holistic.  You can’t just look at physical health.  You need to address financial, relational, and emotional health.  It is our responsibility as business owners to change corporate culture.  Organically, from the ground up, redefining what business success is. Having healthy, happy, engaged, productive, creative employees will spill over into their families and community and create a virtuous cycle of reasonable, sustainable economic growth.