Companies recognize that healthy employees create a more productive and more cost-effective workplace. Personal health self-management programs - from smoking cessation to diet plans to stress-management training - are common in organizations seeking to improve performance and lower health care and injury claim costs.
Current research indicates that training sessions alone don't work - that learning doesn't take place on a cognitive level alone. The full benefits of performance support come from an integrated mind/body approach.
New information can be difficult to remember and put into practice. Cisco Systems CEO Tom Kelly, speaking about cognitively based learning, noted in a Fast Company interview that, "...the classroom retention rate is only 25 percent after the first week and from then on, people drop off significantly." Learning will become most effective, he added, when "it's simply a natural part of how people work."
Integrating positive practices into the workday is especially important in stress management. Studies now show that stress in itself is not the problem: it's the lack of consistent periods of energy recovery that cause burnout. And to be effective, such periods may be necessary once every 90 to 120 minutes.
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