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Elderly fall victims are susceptible to a wide range of debilitating injuries, including brain injuries and fractured hips, wrists, knees, and other broken bones. Sadly, many elderly fall victims don’t survive their injuries. Nationwide, 34,000 fatal falls among the elderly were recorded in 2019.

TASA ID: 22108

The unemployment rate is surprisingly low, at 3.7%, shocking economists who expected a slowdown in hiring and rising unemployment rate. Frontline work such as healthcare led job growth. Frontline workers are in high demand, and the competition for their services is fierce. Yet wage growth cooled to .3%, the smallest rise since August 2021. That means employers are offering more jobs, but not offering higher wages to attract staff, likely due to fears of a recession, or at least an economic slowdown.

In this setting, non-wage benefits make a crucial differentiator in recruiting and retaining frontline workers. And there’s a surprising benefit that’s cheap to offer, yet incredibly desirable: remote work. In fact, a survey of 1,500 U.S. workers by benefits provider Unum found that after health insurance, flexible/remote work represented the most highly desired benefit. Having consulted for 22 organizations on hybrid and remote work, I’ve seen these benefits boost retention and recruitment, improve productivity and engagement, and cut costs. You might be surprised to hear that my experience applies to frontline settings as well, such as in two hospitals where I helped establish hybrid work programs for frontline healthcare staff.

TASA ID: 22108

They say remote and hybrid work is bad for employee mental well-being and leads to a sense of social isolation, meaninglessness, and lack of work/life boundaries. We should just all go back to office-centric work - or so claim many traditionalist business leaders and gurus. For example, Malcolm Gladwell said that there is a “core psychological truth, which is we want you to have a feeling of belonging and to feel necessary… I know it’s a hassle to come into the office, but if you’re just sitting in your pajamas in your bedroom, is that the work life you want to live?”

TASA ID: 22108

With a triple pandemic of COVID, flu, and RSV hitting the US hard this winter and resulting in an explosion of cases, business executives need to take the lead on promoting the newly-updated, Omicron-specific boosters. Doing so will help reduce the number of sick days taken by their workers, minimize COVID outbreaks and superspreader events in their companies, reduce employee fears about returning to the office, and position executives as trustworthy participants in stakeholder capitalism.

TASA ID: 22108

The pandemic has led to an undeniable awareness of the need for a new C-suite leader, the CHO or the Chief Health Officer. This has been driven by the recognition of the importance of employee health for engagement, productivity, and risk management, along with lowering healthcare insurance costs. At the same time, more and more employees are reporting growing mental and physical health challenges in these troubled times.

In the race to keep employees safe while keeping productivity and morale up, organizations are realizing that simply offering yoga and other wellness programs through Employee Assistance Programs will not cut it. This awareness ushered in the need for a top executive whose sole focus is on optimizing employee health, physical and mental, for the sake of company bottom lines.

Thus, say hello to the Chief Health Officer, the new C-suite leader who is both captain and curator of an organization’s health policies. The CHO is in charge of dealing with the health of employees, both physical and mental.