Employee Benefit News: Employer achieves health accountability with performance reviews
Lincoln Industries feels so strongly about wellness that the company has made it a component of its employees' performance reviews.
The company, based in Lincoln, Neb., employs about 400 people in a 24/7 operation that manufactures products needing high-performance metal finishing. Some of its clients include Harley-Davidson Motor Company, Pella and John Deere.
In 2004, Lincoln Industries added the following wellness statement to its list of corporate beliefs and drivers: Wellness and healthy lifestyles are important to our success.
"If it's good enough to be part of the foundation of our organization, then it should be evaluated is how we perceived it," says Tonya Vyhlidal, wellness, safety and life enhancement director at Lincoln Industries.
Wellness goals are self-defined annually and are part of employees' performance reviews. Senior managers, in particular, are responsible for setting a good example, with as much as 25% of their performance review dependent on meeting their wellness goals, which include wellness leadership responsibility.
Directors can have between 10% and 15% of their review based on wellness objectives, while lower managerial levels can attribute up to 5% of their review to meeting wellness goals.
"I've seen people hold themselves accountable to going home and eating dinner with their family twice a week because we're so busy," says Vyhlidal. "I've seen people put their blood profile numbers on there; I've seen people put things related to their faith practice on there. It's really designed by the individual but worked on with, and supported by, their supervisor."
Production workers, meanwhile, evaluate themselves based on a matrix that's built around wellness, safety and quality. Workers rate themselves anywhere from zero to five, their supervisor rates them, and both sides sit down and discuss it.
Vyhlidal emphasizes the matrix is not based on physical fitness level and personal appearance but rather on employees' engagement level, understanding and support of wellness and their leadership. …
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