How News Becomes News Put Out By The City of Mesa Newsroom | Healthy Worksite [except for stress]

City of Mesa recognized by Healthy Arizona Worksites Program 06-30-2016 at 8:37:05 AM Source:MesaNow The City of Mesa was recognized recently by the Healthy Arizona Worksites Program as achieving the Gold level of excellence in worksite wellness. The Healthy Arizona Worksite Award recognizes employers that are making efforts to positively affect the health and well-being of their employees, their families and their community by implementing comprehensive worksite wellness strategies ... Mesa received this recognition for supporting employee health by the implementation of a comprehensive Employee Health & Wellness Center [read more on the city's $54Million Health Center in Maria Polletta's report included below] City Manager Chris Brady, in the image to the right from the City of Mesa, sports a slight paunch in his city-issued white polo shirt accepting the award for worksite wellness. See a press release included below from healthcare provider's website about issues in the workplace that are created by stress by unclear expectations from supervisors.

One day later The Mesa Independent picked up on the story:
City of Mesa recognized by Healthy Arizona Worksites Program

Jul 1st, 2016 · by Mesa Independent staff report    
The city of Mesa was recently recognized by the Healthy Arizona Worksites Program as achieving the Gold level of excellence in worksite wellness

Almost two months later here's another press release from the city's newsroom: Mesa named as 2016 Health at Work award winner 09-01-2016 at 2:24:30 PM Source: MesaNow     The City of Mesa has been announced a Silver winner of the 12th annual Health at Work Awards, sponsored by ComPsych, honoring organizations which promote employee health and wellness. Winners were selected based on their wellness program's comprehensiveness, delivery, promotion, participation rates and results achieved. According to this press release from http://www.compsych.com/ CHICAGO – Jan. 25, 2016 – When it comes to change in the workplace, employees aren’t as worried about workload as one might think, according to a new Tell It Now(SM) survey from ComPsych Corporation. Thirty-one percent of employees are most troubled by unclear expectations from supervisors, . . According to  Dr. Richard A. Chaifetz, Founder, Chairman and CEO of ComPsych. ”Employees are telling us that much of the disequilibrium around change is coming from managers. These challenges have resulted in our training topics of ‘resiliency’ and ‘coping with change’ being by far the most popular,” he added. Employee Survey:  When you experience change at work, what is most stressful for you? 31 percent said “unclear expectations from supervisors” 20 percent said “confusion / conflict between coworkers / departments” 18 percent said “belief that workload will increase or become more difficult” 15 percent said “uncertainty about future / questions about stability of company” 13 percent said “new processes / operating rules / skills needed”  WHY ALL THE BIG NEWSROOM BUILD-UP ABOUT HEALTHY WORKSITES?On September 16, 2016 Your MesaZona featured a post about employee benefits in a video publicly available, with some of the same people used by Maria Polletta in a report from January 19, 2015.Watch this from Mesa City Council Study Session Sept 15, 2016 [24 minutes] 6 views City contributions are going up 8%6 episodes of catastrophic coverage for over $100,000 each in this year-to-date $10 Million draw-down, but fund balance is "healthy" ??? with a little juggling between the calendar and fiscal years"Little early to tell if there will be a reduction in costs"Dave Richins speaks up  Mesa's employee-health center could save city millions Maria Polletta, The Republic | azcentral.com 4:42 p.m. MST January 19, 2015   It starts like this: About five years ago, as Mesa's health-care costs continued a double-digit climb, city administrators began brainstorming more effective ways to protect the health of its workers — and its budget As Mesa heightens its focus on affordable preventative care, employees who haven't sought medical attention in five to 10 years are coming out of the woodwork The city after further analysis was surprised to find that, of the more than $40 million it had been paying annually for employee health care, routine or preventive care was not gobbling up the largest chunk. The majority of the cash was going to "back-end" or critical care, such as overnight hospital stays after a heart attack or specialized treatment following the late discovery of a disease. "Everybody felt as though, if we had some sort of health center upfront, we could detect these kinds of conditions early on," said Gary Manning, Mesa's director of human resources. "If it could avoid even one long-term hospitalization that would cost us tens of thousands of dollars, there was a great deal of savings that you could have there." The city made the concept a reality in October, when it opened a 4,100-square-foot wellness center for its roughly 4,000 employees and their dependents. Monday through Friday, the center at 1121 S. Gilbert Road functions as a primary-care clinic and urgent care for adults and children. The city estimates such early catches could save Mesa up to 5 percent of the $54 million it spends on employee health care annually, or $2.7 million a year. Officials said that estimate was conservative. There's also the fact that the city's much-touted savings are likely a couple of years down the road. Mesa had to fork over about $1.5 million to ready the former pediatric center for use, and it will pay about $1.2 million in annual operational costs going forward. Still, "even if the center just breaks even and pays for itself, I think we're doing wonders," Brady said.