Pay Stub Messages / Email Attachments

Include healthy living tips on pay stubs for employees. Inform employees of upcoming flu shot clinics, disease awareness months, blood drives, and other health events happening in the community. At the bottom of company-wide emails, you can include a generic health tip for them (e.g. staying hydrated in the summer, healthy recipes, and recreational league sign-up dates).

Lunch and Learn

Host a presentation to educate employees on a variety of healthy living topics. Bring in a physiotherapist to provide tips to stay injury free while being physically active, have a cancer specialist talk about screening tests or awareness campaigns, or a dental hygienist to discuss oral health care. Think outside the box and target an area employee might not normally consider!

Health Fair

Organize a Health Fair at your workplace. Invite organizations to provide a display or handouts that introduce employees to the issues related to healthy eating, staying active, and maintaining vitality throughout life. Invite health professionals including Registered Dietitians, Public Health Nurses, physiotherapists, and certified ergonomists. Organizations could include Heart and Stroke Foundation, Canadian Mental Health Association, Canadian Diabetes Association, or the Canadian Lung Association.

Online Treasure Hunt Challenge

Set up a Treasure Hunt Challenge over the Internet. Select key health websites and choose various words, phrases, sentences, and facts from their site for employees to locate. Create a list of clues that will lead them from one site to another. This is a great way to encourage staff to become familiar with websites that are related to health.

Screening Clinics

Organize a screening clinic for your employees. These screenings could include blood pressure, blood sugar, body mass index, and cholesterol values measured by qualified health care providers. See the Community Resources information sheet for local agencies that provide this service.

Give the Gift of Life

According to a recent poll by the Canadian Blood Services, 52 per cent of Canadians say they, or a family member, have needed blood or blood products for surgery or for medical treatment. With an aging population more blood is needed to meet increasing demands. Single donations of blood can save lives. Now think about how many lives can be saved if a group of employees give blood together. Consider donating as a team by joining the Canadian Blood Services’ Partners for Life Program.

Also, at any given time, about 250 Canadians are waiting for a bone marrow match to be found. Yet, fewer than 30% of them will find a family member with compatible bone marrow to donate. Offering to join the Unrelated Bone Marrow Donor Registry (UBMDR) increases the chance that a match can be found for a patient in need. Organize an information session to encourage employees to sign-up with this life saving registry.

For more information on the Partners for Life Program or on joining the UBMDR, visit www.bloodservices.ca or call 1-888-2-DONATE (1-888-236-6283).

Diabetes Awareness Month

Consider organizing a single activity or month-long series of events to raise awareness about the risk factors for diabetes. Activities could include placing information about diabetes in pay stubs or in internal communications, inviting a qualified expert to speak with employees about preventative measures that individuals can take to reduce the risk of developing type II diabetes, or offering a free blood glucose clinic. If offering a clinic, have trained professionals administer the tests and inform participants that screening only provides a general indication of their blood glucose levels at that moment, not a definitive diagnosis of any medical condition.

For information on speakers or to obtain credible print resources on diabetes, contact the Diabetes Program at the Sandwich Community Health Centre (519-254-3402) or your local Canadian Diabetes Association office.

Ribbon Campaign or Fundraiser for AIDS

Hold a fundraising event or become involved with World AIDS Day by hosting a ribbon campaign to honour and commemorate those lost to AIDS. For more information contact AIDS Committee of Windsor at 519-972-0222 or www.aidswindsor.com.

Open House at Work

Invite employees and their families to an open house at work. Consider organizing family-friendly activities for children such as face painting, balloon twisting or cooperative games. Be sure to offer healthy snacks (i.e., fruit and vegetables) and refreshments for visitors. You may even want to invite local community health agencies to provide visitors with health information. These suggestions serve as a starting point. Feel free to brainstorm healthy activities that will best meet the interests of your employees and their families.

Prevention is the Best Medicine

• Hold a health fair and invite organizations from the community to set up displays to educate employees about the need to screen and the types of screening available.
• Distribute health screening information sheets to employees (e.g. as a pay stub insert).

Quality Time

• Hold a family picnic and offer a variety of active games like Frisbee golf, soccer, rope skipping, potato sack races, slow pitch, or ball games.
• Arrange for an outing at a skating rink, swimming pool or mini-putt facility.
• Rent a room at a community centre or local club and plan a father-daughter and/or mother-son dance or other physical activity outing.
• Make the event special by including healthy meals or snack food items. For picnics, offer lower-fat wieners, sausages or 3-4 ounce burgers. For snacks, offer veggies and a low fat dip, a variety of seasonal fruit, or low-fat snack foods like pretzels. For beverages, include bottled water, 100% fruit juice, or lower-fat milk (e.g. 1%).

Parenting Workshops

Invite a Public Health Nurse from the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit to provide a 30-60 minute presentation to employees on one of the many topics offered, including toilet training, stress management for parents, discipline and dealing with a picky eater. Another option would be to contact the Family Health Department (258-2146, x 1350) to obtain information on workshops offered in the community.