I am Scott Peterson I am the Chief Human Resources Officer of Schwan Food Company and I am here
with Dr. Ed Ehlinger the Commissioner for Health with the State of Minnesota and many
other leaders in the public and private sector. We are here to lend our full support to Governor
Dayton's proclamation declaring 2014 to be the year of Worksite Wellness in the state of Minnesota.
This concept actually grew on an idea from the Alliance for a Healthier Minnesota and
its strong collaboration with Minnesota's Department of Health. Together they convened
more than seventy health organizations last November, and discussed a range of issues
focused on how to improve health within the state. The year of worksite wellness was the
result of that. Good morning everyone; Scott thank you for
your leadership in this, and welcome to the State Capitol Rotunda. This program really
benefits businesses; it helps them to manage their health care costs, it benefits insurance
in providing a great return on its investment. It also helps to reduce overall health care
costs. It increases productivity, it reduces absenteeism, it improves employee morale and
recruitment and retention. It improves the customer experience; it improves the overall
health of the community. We have a proclamation from the governor with
all the usual where as' but just a couple of where as' --Whereas Minnesotans spend nearly
half of their working hours at their jobs and employees who participate in worksite
wellness programs enjoy better health and a higher quality of life. And Whereas businesses
with worksite wellness efforts benefit greater productivity, decreased absenteeism and reduced
health care costs, and a greater likelihood of attracting and retain employees; and whereas workplace
wellness is a growing movement, with 87 percent of Minnesota workplaces interested in improving
wellness and 23 percent of workplaces currently offering worksite wellness efforts; therefore,
I, Mark Dayton, Governor of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim the year of 2014 as the year
of Workplace Wellness. Go out and make your work places as healthy
as possible. Thanks for being here and let's work together through the course of this next year.
State government has had a workforce wellness
program but the legislature has been slow to come on board. Some of my colleagues are here
joining me and will be addressing you shortly just to show that we also have a commitment.
We are really happy to have you all here and happy to have this partnership and I hope
that we will be offering more opportunities for ourselves. Because we can do a better
job for our constituents if we are also healthy. Thank you.
So I am kind of a fitness freak. I have gotten into triathlons and doing quite a bit of
cross training, but I think this fit Minnesota and having the corporate partners, and the
legislature, and the governor's office and just having everybody thinking about these
things and doing right by Minnesota. I, in particular, am excited about this having a business community
interested in taking an active part and trying to make everybody's life better.
As we have healthier employees, we will have more productive employees. We don't compete
against Minneapolis and St. Paul anymore. We compete against Minnesota and China, Minnesota
and Bangalore. And if we can't be more productive, we will lose that particular race, and part
of that productivity is healthy employees. I can tell you one year ago I weighed 80 pounds
more, and I needed a goal and that goal wasn't necessary to lose 80 pounds but to run a
5K in September of last year. Which seemed frankly like an absolute impossible. I did
that in September and did the Mayo Heritage 5K a little later on that year and a turkey
trot in Rochester on Thanksgiving Day. If anybody wants to do the valentine thing next
week... In 2008, when we were pursuing funding for
the Statewide Health Improvement Program, SHIP, which I bet a lot of you know about,
I remember going to New Hope to talk with a group of people about it and they all looked
aghast as a legislator was talking about how we need to tackle the epidemic of obesity
in Minnesota. And I realized that people weren't clear what we were going to do so I promised
them I wouldn't come with a caliber, and that I wasn't going to do any measurement for anybody's index.
But we do need to continue to pursue this issue and it is one that comes from each
of us from our communities, our towns, and policymakers...
My main job is a hog farmer and so I get to keep in shape by lifting 35 pound feeder pigs.
And that is not a challenge to make the omnibus bill lose 35 pounds. (laugh, laugh, laugh)
This is one of those opportunities that it is really such an obvious thing that it can
bring everybody together bipartisan, business and labor, employees and I think just the
obvious health care cost benefits. Again talking about those omnibus bills and seeing the HHS
bill and things like that grow and grow and that is only going to continue if we don't
find a way to keep ourselves and our neighbors in better physical condition.
We created the CEO pledge and what we want to do is create more forward thinking employers
like Schwans, Dakota Electric who are going to invest in their employee wellness. The
CEO pledge is an evidence based strategy that is free but a CEO is committing to taking
action in the workplace to help employees achieve better wellness. Our goal for the CEO
pledge is to have the most employers, and the most CEOs in any state in the country,
to be a part of the CEO pledge we are going to try and make that happen here in 2014
and we hope that in Minnesota the CEOs, employers, and law makers can lead the country in reversing
our unhealthy tipping point. Thank you. This public-private partnership that we are
launching today creates a unique opportunity to leverage resources across Minnesota that
support employers as they create work environments that support their employees' health. Through
the Statewide Health Improvement Program our Local Public Health partners have been working
with employers in their communities to start or improve worksite wellness efforts in their
communities and their organizations. We do this by making healthy choices more available
to more people. And worksite wellness is a perfect example of this philosophy.