On January 27, 2017, we came together at the Annual Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce Breakfast to celebrate the award winners from our Activated Business Challenge. These workplaces joined our challenge as a way to increase their focus on employee wellness. The goal of the Activated Business Challenge is to allow workplaces a simple and convenient way to improve their overall emphasis on employee wellness as an organization. Through an online assessment, workplaces are able to determine areas where they were strong as well as areas that needed improvement. Questions involved policy- such as tobacco, healthy foods, physical activity and breastfeeding support policies, environment- such as signage, education opportunities, mental health support and also community interaction and support of health and wellness initiatives throughout the county. Each workplace is given a score based on their responses and are also given feedback on recommendations that would fit each individual workplace. Based on these recommendations, workplaces can select areas where they wished to change policy, environment or increase education and PICH grant staff were and are able to assist and support these changes. This partnership between workplaces and the PICH Grant staff continues as long as needed to ensure successful implementation.
We are pleased to congratulate our workplaces who achieved a high enough score to be recognized at Gold, Silver and Bronze levels. Our Gold Level awardees include Allen County Public Health and Webb Insurance Agency. Our Silver level awardees include Allen County RTA, Anytime Fitness Lima, NOW Marketing Group, PotashCorp, and Procter and Gamble Lima. Our Bronze Level awardees include CG Pro Bikes, IHeartMedia, Lima/Allen County Chamber of Commerce, Lyn’s Academy of Dance and Wessler Engineering. Congratulations to these workplaces and thank you for all you are doing to ensure healthy employees in Allen County!
Are you ready to see your workplace get Activated? It is not too late! We will start another round of applications February 15, 2017 and the application site will remain open through March 31, 2017. During this time and into the Spring, workplaces across the county will have the ability to work with our grant staff team to increase your focus on employee health. You can find information about the program as well as join the challenge by visiting ActivateAllenCounty.com and clicking on the Healthy Workplace tab. From that page, you will find videos, informational pages, sample policies and other helpful workplace wellness information. You will also find the link to apply to become an Activated Business Challenge on that page. Log on and apply today! For more information, call the Activate office at 419-221-5035 and ask for Kayla Monfort.