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The purpose of this paper is to document the total return on investment (ROI) of a comprehensive worksite health program from 1999 to 2007 through two different analytic approaches.

Two analytical techniques were used: time period analysis and historical trend analysis of the entire study period. The time‐period analysis of ROI was performed among employees in four time periods: 1999‐2001; 2002‐2003, 2004‐2005; and 2006‐2007. The historical trend analysis on participation‐related savings was used to compare the financial trend differences between participants and non‐participants as well as the three different participation levels of continuous, sporadic, and non‐participants since the year 2000 among 2,753 employees who worked for and were covered by the company‐sponsored health plans for the entire study period.

The ROI from health care costs and time away from work ranged from 1.29 to 2.07 for the four time periods with a cumulative ROI of 1.66 over nine years. The historical trend analysis of 2,753 long‐term employees resulted in a 1.57 ROI for 2,036 program participants (t‐test: p<0.005) with statistically significant annual saving of $180 per participant per year.

The returns on comprehensive worksite health program were greater than the program investment as documented by both time‐period and historical trend analyses. Organizations seeking ways to manage the increases in health care and absenteeism costs of employees will be encouraged to see that positive returns can be generated by investments in employee health and wellness and steady or consistent participation is one key to generating success.

This chapter reports on a longitudinal quasi-experimental field study within an organizational design of a global consumer products manufacturer moving toward high-performance work systems (HPWSs) in North America by integrating business centers and self-directed work teams (SDWTs) coupled with 13 other action-levers within an integrated and bundled high-performance organizations (HPOs) re-design. The results of this organizational design effort are assessed using different types and levels of organizational outcomes (hard record data, behavioral, and attitudinal measures) along a 5-year temporal dimension punctuated by multiple time periods (baseline, during, and after). The organization, which was “built to change” (Lawler & Worley, 2006), in this research had already highly superior or “exemplar” (Collins, 2001) levels of organizational performance. Consequently, the real research question becomes: “What effect does state of the art organizational design and development have on an exemplar organization?” The study also calls into question the field's ability to truly assess exemplar organizations with existing measures of organizational change and development.

Technology proliferation is on a movement to outpace an 18^th-century computing industry paradigm known as “Moore’s law.” This law establishes the rate of technological advancements. The premise of this edict is evident in our coupled workplace with the integration of an emerging technology known as Ambient Intelligence (Aml).

The modernization of the traditional office is designed to be collaborative and environment-friendly. Modernization is primarily due to ambient intelligence. “Opportunities for process and business improvements will derive from a “real-world Web” of smart objects and ambient intelligence, and from consumer-oriented trends such as Web business platforms, aesthetic design, and mobile robots as they move into the business world” (Fenn and Smith, 2005, para. 1). It is safe to reason that ambient intelligence is on a trendy trajectory in many business-oriented workplaces, worksites and workspaces. The business culture is inconspicuously changing before our eyes. Architects and designers are seamlessly incorporating this trend into their respective end-to-end processes of constructing new or retrofitting existing office spaces.

Its unnoticeably embedded adoption is in conference rooms, doorways, elevators, escalators, lighting, meeting rooms, phone displays, and walkways. As ambient technology naturally collides with the functional way an office professional interactively operates through a usual workday, its adaptation becomes seemingly smart and swift. The interesting facet of this technology is that one would not know it unless it was pointed out.

Although there are equipment and devices that offer a singular approach of being convenient and hands-free, there exist common misconceptions and unassuming annoyances that are in place as inherent issues. Once the work environment impedes productivity or natural flow of movement, we realize something is different. These differences align to the surrounding tangible and intangible cues. The information presented in this chapter will disclose the underlying issues at a practical level.

The purpose of this study is to consider the potential use of social marketing to enhance safety compliance in a biomedical research laboratory.

This project used focus group discussions (n = 32) and semi-structured interviews (n = 10) to gather information on occupational health and safety professionals’ perceptions of safety culture, knowledge of barriers and facilitators of safety at the worksite and insights on how to effectively communicate safety information to employees through a campaign effort.

Results outlined the barriers (e.g. structural obstacles, lack of awareness of policies, perception of occupational safety and health professionals as safety police) and facilitators (e.g. rapport building, partnering with formal leadership and demonstrating the value of services) of safety and safety communication.

Results from this work add to theoretical and practical knowledge regarding how risk may be effectively addressed by using social marketing and health behavior theories to promote voluntary adherence to existing rules and recommendations.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and characterize patterns of physical activity among office workers employed in largely sedentary occupations at a major health insurer located in the Southeastern USA.

The authors used latent class analysis to identify segments of office workers (n=239) based on their self-reported activities of daily living and exercise behaviors. The authors examined the association of demographic characteristics with segment membership, and differences in accelerometer-measured weekly minutes of light and moderate-vigorous physical activity across segments.

The authors identified two segments and labeled them “exerciser” and “non-exerciser.” Being female was associated with lower odds of membership in the “exerciser” segment (OR=0.18; 95% CI=0.06, 0.52), while those with at least a bachelor’s degree were more likely to be in the “exerciser” segment (OR=2.12; 95% CI=1.02, 4.40). Mean minutes of moderate-vigorous physical activity per week were greater for the “exerciser” segment than the “non-exerciser” segment.

Based on this sample, the authors found that office workers in sedentary occupations were roughly equally divided and distinguished by their engagement in exercise-type behaviors. The findings underscore the need for innovative workplace programming that enhances activity opportunities particularly for those that are not likely to exercise.

A scarcity of research on activity patterns among office workers inhibits development of targeted worksite activity programming. The present research reveals two segments of workers with regard to their activity patterns and suggests ways for worksites to meet their unique needs.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the nutritional quality of dinnertime meals eaten out of home (OH) vs those eaten at home by male Korean workers.

The study included 1,634 male Korean workers aged between 19 and 64 years among 15,508 individuals who participated in a 24-hour dietary recall through the Sixth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2013 to 2014. The study participants were classified and analyzed according to the place where dinner had been prepared: out-of-home group (OHG) (n=659) and at-home group (AHG) (n=975).

Young male white-collar workers who are unmarried with a higher level of education and income were more likely to eat OH at dinner. The OHG consumed more energy, fat, and sodium, but less carbohydrate at dinner than the AHG. The contribution of dinner to daily energy and macronutrient intakes, except for carbohydrate, was higher in the OHG. Additionally, the study results suggested that the OHG was less likely to consume a traditional Korean meal at dinner. Overall, the nutritional quality of dinnertime meals eaten OH had greater potential to lead to negative effects on nutrition and health.

This study highlights OH eating among male Korean workers as an important arena in which strategies for healthier eating can be deployed when establishing worksite health promotion or related national nutrition policies.

Research has shown that, when employees’ work-family conflict levels are reduced, performance in the workplace can increase. How to reduce these levels, however, is a complex task. The purpose of this empirical study was to investigate the differences in work-family conflict between full-time worksite employees and full-time teleworking employees (individuals who teleworked from home at least two days per week). Employees (n = 308) in seven for-profit companies in Minnesota were sampled and surveyed using a slightly revised version of the Carlson and Kacmar (2000) work-family conflict scale. The findings indicate that teleworkers had lower levels of overall work-family conflict as well as most of the other work-family conflict variables explored (i.e., strain-based, time-based, work interference with family, family interference with work)