The Hidden Risks of Workplace Wellness Programs

<p>(with Adam Goldman, CHRO at Cacique Foods)</p><p>Your step-count challenge got a standing ovation from the exec team. It also passed legal review as ADA compliant. And it’s quietly telling employees with disabilities to choose between disclosing private health information, begging for an exemption, or paying more than their coworkers. Unwinding it without torching a program leadership loves is harder than it looks, especially when you’re the one who launched it.</p><p>What you’ll hear in this episode:</p><ul><li>Why “not technically a penalty” doesn’t hold up when some employees can’t reach the discount at all</li><li>How most wellness programs end up rewarding the people who were already healthy, and what “meeting people where they are” looks like instead</li><li>How to tell leadership you missed something without calling it a failure, by framing the fix as phase two rather than a do-over</li><li>Why an annual physical will likely do more for your healthcare costs than 10,000 steps ever will</li><li>How to design one program for a workforce split across an HQ, production floors, and sales reps who spend half the day in the car</li><li>Why the most mediocre HR teams protect the process instead of the result, and how to keep pride of authorship from getting in your way</li></ul><p>About Adam Goldman:<br />Adam is CHRO at Cacique Foods, where he leads HR across a headquarters office, two manufacturing facilities, and a remote sales team spread over more than a dozen states. After spending most of his career in California, he now works from Texas and brings a strong bias for results over process. He’s also the HR leader who will tell you to get out of your office and walk the grocery aisles with a sales rep.</p><p>HR Voices is brought to you by AllVoices, the employee relations platform for HR teams who’d rather catch issues before they become backfires.</p>