Bootstrap fitness: winning the workplace wellness game takes small moves and team attitude, not big bucks.

• Author: Melani, Debra
• Position: WORKPLACE wellness

DON'T TELL HAROLD JACKSON THAT YOUR company is too small and your budget 100 light to make a difference in employee health. And don't tell him it doesn't. matter. In company where once at quarter or the employee population smoked and candy was at dank staple', healthier habits now reign. And in some cases, the small but persistent efforts have dramatically changed lives.

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"I feel a lot better, and I get around a lot better," says Cal Jackson. 65, Harold Jackson's older brother and libeller operations manager for the family-run Buffalo Supply Inc., in Lafayette. Two years ago, Cal Jackson. who's now "easing into retirement." tipped the scale at 250 pounds and lugged an oxygen tank around to breathe. In the past two years, he's lost 60 pounds, hung up the oxygen tank. gone off all diabetes medicine and cut his heart medicine down by two-thirds. "It kind of gives you a new outlook on life."

Buffalo Supply conk! serve as a poster company For a new wellness movement. At a time when tighter economic tensions are convincing some owners to forget health-boosting efforts altogether, a message is being sent out On many fonts: Small changes lead to big returns, and current times make employee wellness more crucial than ever.

Refocusing on wellness

"Both the NFIB (National Federation of' Independent Business) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.' are putting a focus on wellness in small business right now," says Harold Jackson, executive chairman and Past CEO of' Buffalo Supply. a 16-employee medical-device distribution company. 'LI think they perceive that somehow wellness got lost in the economic downturn. and we think it's prudent to relbcus." said Jackson, who's active in both groups.

Because people generally spend most of' their time in the workplace, businesses have become the wellness fronts on both the national and local fronts. Live Well Colorado, a nonprofit agency aimed at reducing obesity, and the Tri-County Health Department in conjunction with the Y MCA, have recently launched workplace wellness efforts (see sidebar).

The notion is simple: Through leadership example and small, low-cost changes that alter a workplace's atmosphere, businesses can make a big difference in the state of the nation's health and out-of-control healthcare system, and in the company's own bottom line. "I almost had a coronary at the beginning Of the year when we got our annual increase," Jackson said. The steep, 20-percent hike an to enough to...