Linking Workplace Health Promotion Best Practices and Organizational Financial Performance: Tracking Market Performance of Companies With Highest Scores on the HERO Scorecard.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to evaluate the stock performance of publicly traded companies that received high scores on the HERO Employee Health Management Best Practices Scorecard in Collaboration with Mercer© based on their implementation of evidence-based workplace health promotion practices. METHODS: A portfolio of companies that received high scores in a corporate health and wellness self-assessment was simulated based on past market performance and compared with past performance of companies represented on the Standard and Poor's (S&P) 500 Index. RESULTS: Stock values for a portfolio of companies that received high scores in a corporate health and wellness self-assessment appreciated by 235% compared with the S&P 500 Index appreciation of 159% over a 6-year simulation period. CONCLUSIONS: Robust investment in workforce health and well-being appears to be one of multiple practices pursued by high-performing, well-managed companies.

Guidance to employers on integrating e-cigarettes/electronic nicotine delivery systems into tobacco worksite policy.

In recent years, new products have entered the marketplace that complicate decisions about tobacco control policies and prevention in the workplace. These products, called electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) or electronic nicotine delivery systems, most often deliver nicotine as an aerosol for inhalation, without combustion of tobacco. This new mode of nicotine delivery raises several questions about the safety of the product for the user, the effects of secondhand exposure, how the public use of these products should be handled within tobacco-free and smoke-free air policies, and how their use affects tobacco cessation programs, wellness incentives, and other initiatives to prevent and control tobacco use. In this article, we provide a background on e-cigarettes and then outline key policy recommendations for employers on how the use of these new devices should be managed within worksite tobacco prevention programs and control policies.