A staggering amount of individual wealth throughout the world was eliminated by the financial crisis of 2007-2008. Perhaps even more significant was how the event eroded a considerable amount of consumer goodwill and trust in the marketplace.
In “Creating Shareholder Value,” http://www.amazon.com/Creating-Shareholder-Value-Managers-Investors/dp/0684844109 Alfred Rappaport illustrates that common C Suite business best practices in the past have focused shareholder returns as a key measure of company success. Not so long ago, a CEO’s key performance metric rested largely—and to some extent still do—on the corporate bottom line. However, in a Harvard Business Journal article entitled “Creating Shared Value” https://hbr.org/2011/01/the-big-idea-creating-shared-value, authors Michael Porter and Mark Kramer demonstrate that marketing initiatives have begun to shift their focus significantly. “Shared value” is defined in the article as how a company leverages its competitive advantage in a way that contributes to a wider social concern.
This idea can be practiced in wellness. Team in Training www.teamintraining.com is an organized half- marathon, triathlon, and full-marathon group training program. Participants enroll in a given training program with proceeds of the aggregate registrations allotted to combat Leukemia and Lymphoma research and treatment. This practice is also common in corporate sport marketing. The Citi Open (formerly the Legg Mason Tennis Classic) in Washington, DC is a men’s and women’s professional ATP/WTA tennis tournament http://www.citiopentennis.com/. Proceeds of ticket sales benefit the Washington Tennis and Education Foundation (WTEF) www.wtef.org . WTEF’s mission is to advance scholarship and tennis in the lives of disadvantaged youth in the Washington DC area. Through academic tutoring and tennis instruction participants are taught life skills of discipline, self-sufficiency, sportsmanship and accomplishment. In “Philanthrocapitalism,” http://www.amazon.com/Philanthrocapitalism-How-Giving-Save-World/dp/1596916958 , Michael Green and Matthew Bishop indicate the future of the world rests in the capacity of the rich to leverage their capacity to alleviate the effects of catastrophe, hunger, disease and poverty.
As a member of the board of directors for Samaritan Ministry www.samaritanministry.org we are engaging potential corporate partners around this concept. Through the Next Step Program our organization helps to transition individuals, a large number of whom are homeless from a lifestyle of dependence to independence. As an avid tennis fan, I am also a Washington Kastles Ambassador. The Kastles http://www.washingtonkastles.com/splash/ are members of the eight-team World Team Tennis league started by Billie Jean King to foster teamwork in tennis. To promote the team, the program rewards Ambassadors that sell tickets by allocating a portion of ticket sales to an organization of the Ambassador’s choosing. As you might imagine, my organization of choice is Samaritan Ministry.
So, how can your organization use wellness to create shared value? In our post “The 10 Essential Components of a Wellness Program,” http://uptickwellness.com/the-10-essential-components-of-a-corporate-wellness-program/ we list hallmarks that are key to any wellness initiative. If your organization does not have a wellness program and you wish to start one, you need to identify a wellness coordinator or vendor to assist you with the initial structure of your program.
If you have a wellness program and wish to add the Shared Value component, we suggest you form a wellness committee. That team can identify a few causes that align with your company mission and, more importantly, ones that have a mission that can benefit from your skill set. Your committee can then brainstorm around the types of competition or group activity to engage your employees for the benefit of the cause or charity. Decide how the proceeds will be allocated and then it’s just a matter of scheduling and measuring your success.
The most important component in this exercise is collaboration. This will allow employee leaders to share and take ownership of the initiative. The process can foster teambuilding, engagement, and build culture. It’s what the Marines call “horizontal and vertical cohesion”. Establish benchmarks for success and report the outcomes. Your success will be a function of clarity and conviction. Good luck!
Julian Tait is the Principal and Founder of Uptick Wellnes a corporate wellness consultancy. Follow them on twitter @UptickWellness. He can be reached at jtait [at] uptickwellness.com