Ron Goetzel: The Godfather of Workplace Health Promotion

In this episode of The Work Well Podcast, we are privileged to be joined by the godfather of workplace health promotion, Ron Goetzel. 

Ron is a Senior Scientist and Director of the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies (IHPS) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is responsible for leading innovative projects for healthcare purchase, managed care, government, and pharmaceutical clients interested in conducting cutting-edge research focused on the relationship between health and wellbeing, medical costs, and work-related productivity. 

Ron is globally recognised for his research on health and productivity management (HPM), return-on-investment (ROI), program evaluation, and outcomes research. 

I hope you enjoy our chat with Ron! 

KPI’s and wellbeing measurements: then vs. now

The conversation kicks off with a discussion on the differences between healthcare programmes now and when Ron began his career. The main difference that Ron recognises is that wellbeing programmes in the 1970’s were executive wellness programmes focused on physical health. “Then it expanded, in the late seventies, executives started saying: ‘This is good for me. Why can't it be good for everybody else? Why not offer this to all my workers?”, Ron comments. 

After that, programmes focused on raising awareness and teaching people how to be healthy but it was still oriented towards individuals rather than targeting a community or the culture within the workplace. However, as Ron puts it, once you start showing organisations the relationship between people’s health and productivity, among other success metrics, organisations start to realise that public health is not only a government issue.

How does ROI work when it comes to health and wellbeing?

Ron has conducted detailed research on the return-on-investment of wellbeing programmes. The main way to see how ROI works in terms of health is to look at how the money is being spent and the value of the investment. 

"Now, my rationale, my reasoning, is that if you can document that your investment actually improved the health and wellbeing of your worker. That's a good ROI and it didn't cost you that much."  Says Ron. 

But then we face the issue of how much are stakeholders willing to pay and how do we demonstrate our results. Ron advises asking this directly to the stakeholders to have a clearer view of how much they are willing to invest and what exactly are their expectations from our health and wellbeing programme.

Start small

Organisations often come unstuck at an early stage of their wellbeing programme because they haven’t considered or prioritised stakeholders' expectations.

Ron suggests first to document and communicate these priorities after meeting with stakeholders and managers, and then propose plans of action in order to achieve certain results. There's a trial period that plans have to go through to see if they actually work. 

"Test it, try it out and see if there's a response, a reaction. Maybe we have to turn up the heat. Maybe people don't like it, maybe, you know, the way that you're communicating it doesn't make sense. And then, if it works, scale it, if it doesn't work, let's go back to the drawing board." Says Ron.

Building a culture of health in the workplace

Brian continues the conversation by asking Ron about a ‘culture of health’, a term coined by Ron in his 2014 paper "Do Workplace Health Promotion Programs Work?". In this paper, Ron highlights the key characteristics of effective programmes. 

Ron adds: "Certainly, a large number of programs don't work. And that's because they go back to the old model that I talked about earlier, having people who are willing and interested and engaged, sit in the classroom, learn how to eat better, how to exercise, how to manage their blood pressure and so forth. But most people, don't really have the time or interest in doing that."

A culture of health, on the other hand, is founded on the basis of "better health equals better work", not just for the organisation but for the employees as well, and that is the message they should be getting from the senior leaders and the organisation as a whole. Consistent healthy behaviours and healthy actions over time leads to a culture of health at the workplace. 

Awards that recognise workplace health and wellbeing initiatives

Metrics don't only help companies keep track of results but they can also help them gain recognition through awards such as the C Everett Koop Award and the new Carolyn C Mattingly Award for mental health in the workplace. 

Assessors for both programmes are looking for demonstrated and proven positive results, so organisations must show a return on investment, as well as value on investment. Ron is involved with both awards, any organisation can participate, there is no fee to participate and the programmes themselves offer a lot of useful feedback for organisations. 

You can find more about the awards through the following links: C Everett Koop Award and Carolyn C Mattingly Award for mental health in the workplace.

How can organisations work towards creating a culture of health?

Most organisations have some kind of wellbeing programme set up, but how can they take it to the next level in order to build a culture of health?

Ron suggests going back to the data to find points of improvement. "I was taught that there are three different buckets of measures. And the first one is a structural bucket, which is basically a checklist. Do I have an EAP? Do I have a wellness class? Do I have a gym? Do I have this? Do I have that? So those are things that are in place. And if you do it right, then you have all the structures in place that you need to have a good program." He says.

Then, there's the process bucket, which basically allows leaders to see if people are actually using these programmes and services. Are people engaging? How are they reacting? Finally, there's the outcome bucket, which gathers all of the outcome results. This bucket allows leaders to have a better understanding on how their programmes are affecting the organisation and how they can improve upon them. 

What does the future of workplace health promotion look like for Ron Goetzel

Ron forecasts that the initial outlook will be a little more complicated because it will require wellbeing leaders to be more creative when thinking about solutions for hybrid and remote models. 

"We don't really know what's going to happen in the post-pandemic period, which hopefully is upon us or will be upon us very soon. So I think we're going to have to be very creative about how we get people on the same page. One of the best ways to do it is with young people and make it a very social activity." He comments. 

Ron believes most people will naturally go back to social activities since, in his own words, "we're sick and tired of talking to TV screens and doing things virtually. We want to be together with our friends, with people we like, and hang out and do things that we enjoy doing." Activities like those are healthy in all sorts of ways and people are starting to become aware of that.

And how to do this? Ron would like to see the younger generation provide innovative solutions that can combine the benefits of both the physical and digital workplace.

Young people reading this and listening to the conversation could learn a lot from Ron Goetzel.

If you’d prefer to watch our conversation, you can view it on YouTube through this link. 

If you liked this episode, and you'd like to know more about Ron Goetzel, check out the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s site and you can also find him on LinkedIn.

About Your Host

Brian Crooke is a wellbeing educator, speaker and adviser, empowering organisations to promote and sustain wellbeing within their workplaces.

He is the founder of The Work Well Institute and the Work Well Community and is Course Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness at Tangent, Trinity College Dublin. He is the host of The Work Well Podcast.

If you’re looking to bring sustainable wellbeing to your workplace then check out The Work Well Institute’s flagship programme, Developing a Workplace Wellness Programme that Lasts.

In his spare time, Brian is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT social enterprise.

If you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like to hear on the show, email Brian directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com