Wellness Programs Go for Standing Beds

Hailed as a logical extension of evidence-based health promotion, major employers are beginning to incorporate standing beds into their employee wellness programs in startling numbers. A recent survey of Fortune 500 corporate benefit programs found that the concept represents the hottest trend in employee wellness. Fully 23% of businesses with outcome-based wellness programs have begun incorporating this innovation in their plans. Another 28% have indicated that they are actively evaluating the technology.

One leading wellness industry expert, Frank Underwood of Lifespan Health Resources, explained the compelling logic behind this trend:

Standing desks are totally just 2014 leftovers. Back then, we didn’t fully understand the impact of standing desks on productivity. It turns out that people are more easily distracted from the business of business when they are standing. But with standing beds, employers get the best of both worlds. Employees get all the health benefits of standing, but they do it on their own time.

Charles Montgomery Burns, Chief Human Capital Officer for Soulstice Technologies explained further:

Our employees are the most important assets we own. With standing beds we can check the box for maximizing productivity at work, while equipping employees to maximize their health at home. In so doing, we satisfy a social contract to do well by doing good. By equipping the beds with wellness sensors, we can incent our employees to get the sleep they must have for maximum workplace productivity.

Predictably, some patient advocates are taking exception to the notion of wellness incentives based upon embedded sleep monitors. Burns could hardly conceal his distain: “Apparently, they didn’t get the memo about the importance of a good night’s sleep.”

Click here for more on workplace wellness from the New Yorker Journal of Employee Health and Wellness. Click here for more background on this phenomenon.

And thanks to Gwyn Cready for tipping us off to the latest in employee wellness.

Standing Sleep, photograph © Alex E. Proimos / flickr

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