How one Nashville nonprofit has invested in their employee’s health
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Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee, Chamber member and winner of Nashville Business Journal’s Best Nonprofit award in 2016, is an organization dedicated to preventing child abuse and helping children thrive in stable homes and communities.
Beyond their important work, PCAT is also contributing to the good of our community by investing in the health of their employees with innovative programming and resources.
PCAT’s voluntary Heart for Families program is available to employees after six months of employment. Participating employees receive a FitBit and gift card to purchase sneakers and take part in quarterly active challenges to achieve both individual and team goals. If participants hit their team goals, they can earn additional days off at the end of the year, leading to two weeks off around the holidays. PCAT also works to ensure access to healthy meals and cater to the nutritional needs of their employees.
PCAT also faces an additional employee wellness obstacle: tackling burnout from the stressful and often traumatic work that employees do in helping children and families dealing with child abuse. To combat this, PCAT has an in-house counselor who is dedicated to helping employees deal with this trauma.
The results of this program have been significant for PCAT. Millions upon millions of steps walked, employees who have lost anywhere from 5 to 50 pounds, and employees who now manage their health without medications are some of the positive results of the program, according to Melanie Scott, PCAT’s director of development.
“We feel like our program is a game changer – not only for employees but also in attracting new talent,” Melanie says. “We hope everyone will eventually adopt similar practices. For us it’s about making sure our employees are healthy in both mind and body in order to best serve families.”
There are many important lessons to be learned from PCAT’s story. Many organizations feel they can’t implement a wellness policy due to size or lack of resources. Prevent Child Abuse Tennessee’s story shows this isn’t the case, and the investment is worth it for talent attraction and retention.
“I think one of the largest benefits is the employees say that they feel like our agency cares about them as individuals,” Melanie Scott says. “I feel like if we can do it, anyone can.”
To learn more about how your business can implement employee wellness initiative, check out our in-depth article: “How to Build a Successful Employee Health Program”.
You can get help in implementing an employee health program with the help of our Chamber member businesses. The Chamber members below offer services that may help you improve your employee’s health.
Eat Well: Eat Well Nashville is meal prep service on a mission to help the community eat well and live better by bringing healthy and fresh cooked meals to homes, gyms, offices and businesses across the greater Nashville area.
Odyssey Fitness: Odyssey Fitness delivers onsite fitness classes, personal training, monthly lunch and learns, quarterly challenges and nutrition workshops by their certified exercise physiologists.
If your business provides services that may be helpful in creating an employee wellness program, please get in touch with us.