The results of the American Heart Association 2018 Workplace Health Achievement Index were recently announced and Associated Bank achieved silver level recognition for taking significant steps to build a culture of health in the workplace.
Associated was recognized for its wide variety of wellness initiatives, such as the implementation of a centralized wellness program, offering annual health risk assessments to all colleagues, wellness coaching, various wellness educational opportunities and more. In addition, the healthfulness of Associated’s colleague base was recognized, based on measurements such as Body Mass Index, blood pressure, total cholesterol, and nicotine usage.
The American Heart Association created the Index with its CEO Roundtable members, a leadership collaborative of more than 40 CEOs from some of America’s largest companies who are committed to applying evidence-based approaches to improve their employees’ overall health. The Index uses science-based best practices to evaluate the overall quality and comprehensiveness of their workplace health programs. A unique feature of the Index is that it calculates an average heart health score for employees of participating companies that securely submit aggregate health data.
More than 1,000 companies completed the Index assessment this year and, of those companies, 75% received either Gold, Silver or Bronze recognition. Companies receive benchmarking reports, which allow them to identify potential areas of improvement so that they can advance their annual performance and recognition in the Index and help their workforce move toward ideal heart health.
“We are thrilled to receive this recognition from the American Heart Association,” said Arthur Valentine, wellness coordinator, Associated Bank. “At Associated, we take pride in investing in our colleagues’ health and well-being and are excited to continue implementing our wellness initiatives.”
The Association’s Workplace Health Achievement Index allows companies to measure the effectiveness of their workplace health programs as well as the overall heart health of their employees. Unlike other existing organizational scorecards, the Index also scores companies on the heart health of their employees based on Life’s Simple 7® – the Association’s scientifically validated definition of ideal heart health. The American Heart Association’s Workplace Health Achievement Index assessment is grounded in data-driven science and a quality improvement framework. According to the Nielsen 2016 Employee Health Survey, robust and comprehensive strategies for wellbeing are associated with positive impacts on employees’ health.