Turner Construction recently concluded the first year of deploying Wellness Workdays’ Wellness Trailer 2.0 program, a concept which aims to provide health and wellness resources for all employees and subcontractors on a job site. The overarching program goal acknowledges the historical gap between employee health risks and job site injuries: for many years, the industry’s chronic health issues, both mental and physical, have been tied to workplace distraction and increased rates of otherwise preventable injuries. On their path to “ZERO” injury incidents, Turner consulted Wellness Workdays’ team to help bridge this gap between the reactive and preventative.
Central to the program’s execution is our onsite Health Coach and certified EMT. This key individual plays the dual role of streamlining triage and injury treatment procedures with Turner’s safety department while promoting healthier, preventative behaviors with the help of the Wellness Workdays team. Adept in behavior change methods such as motivational interviewing and behavior change management, health coaches strive to build meaningful relationships and trust among the workforce, offering group wellness programming, one-on-one health coaching, and a connection to off-site care through occupational medicine and employee assistance programs.
This program, launched at one of Turner’s downtown Boston’s project. Despite the formidable challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the program managed to exceed expectations in its first year, with over 60% of the eligible population (450 participants) actively involved in onsite wellness, including over 300 one-on-one coaching sessions completed. Proving its holistic, hands-on approach, Wellness Workdays offered a robust and diverse wellness calendar throughout 2021, covering topics in nutrition, stress management, workplace conflict, mental/emotional health, physical activity, exercise therapy, sleep hygiene, and financial wellness. The wellness events also included Turner’s first site-wide physical activity challenge, a Hawaiian-themed “Big Island Trek”. Participants enthusiastically tracked over 800 miles and 1 million steps.
Results, to date, have been very encouraging: Of the managed injuries in 2021, a significant percentage of the incidents led to coaching sessions, further moving the needle toward a preventative health mindset among the workforce. “You know, it’s really good having the wellness trailer here” remarked one worker, “and it is surprising how many people are using it. Before, the trailer was just somewhere you went when you got hurt… but now you can go for anything. There was this fear of talking about what was going on in your life. It’s good to see the “construction men with no emotions motto is changing.”
To learn more about the Wellness Trailer 2.0, go to: https://www.wellnessworkdays.com/construction-wellness.