Healthy, Wealthy and Wise at Argent Tape and Label

A company is only as healthy as its employees. The loss of productivity due to illness costs U.S. employers over $550 billion each year, but those losses aren’t just due to physical illness. High levels of stress, a perception of poor health, and employees’ levels of life and job satisfaction are also major factors when it comes to lower productivity in the workplace.

Argent Tape and Label promotes good physical and mental health at work and at home through a number of health initiatives that draw on a holistic approach to wellness and take aim at major disease risk factors such as stress, poor nutrition, a lack of physical activity, and being overweight.

Just this month, Argent Tape and Label WON The Best and Brightest in Wellness 2017 Award for the second year in a row.? Congratulations!! This award is sponsored by the Best and Brightest campaign and recognizes quality and excellence in health awareness.? The program highlights companies that plan, implement and evaluate efforts in employee wellness to make their business and community a healthier place to live and work.? We cannot wait to accept our award in October!!

Recipe Sharing

We’re all busy people holding down a day job and spending our evenings and weekends taking care of the home front, shuttling kids to their various activities, engaging in our own social and creative endeavors, and trying to find down time to just curl up on the couch in cut-off sweats and watch old movies on TNT. For many of us, dinnertime is just one more chore that has to be done. It’s always tempting to just order a pizza or stop at the drive-thru on the way home, but cooking at home is a cornerstone of good health.

And that’s why we started our Healthy Recipe Sharing initiative. Argent employees share their tried-and-true simple and healthy recipes to help one another avoid the dreaded conundrum of what to have for dinner and to break the monotony of the same-old, same-old. We have some pretty diverse tastes in food around here, so it’s always fun to try something new and then discuss it at the water cooler the next day!

Working Out at Work

The average gym membership costs $58 a month, but studies reveal that a full 67 percent of people who have a gym membership never go. Because really, who has time? But exercise is absolutely essential for good physical and mental health, strong bones and joints, and maintaining a healthy weight. It also promotes better sleep, reduces stress levels, and helps prevent devastating diseases. So our employees to say sayonara to expensive gym memberships, and we set up a workout center at work. Our on-site fitness center is available for employees to use before and after work or during their lunch hour, and makes it easy to schedule workouts with a work buddy to help build and maintain motivation to stay active.

Health Challenges

We like competition here at Argent. After all, it’s built into our company culture in the form of our MiniGames, March Madness fever, and various contests for charity. So it’s only natural that we’d also concoct a number of health challenges throughout the year.

Our Walking Challenge keeps employees moving throughout the day in an attempt to add more steps to their daily routine. It also helps reduce stress and improve concentration by encouraging more physical activity during the day.

Our Yearly Weight Loss Challenge is a “Biggest Loser”-style competition that helps give employees a little extra motivation to lose those extra pounds or maintain a current healthy weight. The winning team gets the Golden Spoon Award, and tangible prizes for first-, second-, and third-place winners keeps the competition fun and spirited throughout the year. But transcending the competition is a strong support system and heartfelt collective encouragement across teams and, as such, it’s a great team building activity as well.

Guest Speakers

On occasion, we invite guests to come speak to us about various issues pertaining to good health, from weight loss to disease prevention. For example, our regular lunch hour informational sessions with Tray from the Medical Weight Loss Clinic usually end with a 10-week weight loss program giveaway.

Relieving Stress

We also strive to make our work environment as enjoyable and stress-free as possible to increase job satisfaction and promote a strong overall sense of well-being. Our open book management practices have the added benefit of creating a culture of equality and shared responsibility, which helps alleviate a lot of the little anxieties of companies that operate under traditional top-down management. This leaves us more open to honest communication and a keen sense of belonging and camaraderie among employees.

Plus, we also bring our dogs to work, and you can only imagine the enormous power an office full of sweet, napping dogs has over stress and conflict! But that’s a whole other post.