GiftCard Partners Blog

Employee wellness and engagement are hot topics in HR departments across the country. How to keep healthcare costs low and how to keep employees happy, engaged and long tenured are at the forefront of Human Resources challenges. Here are two ways to incorporate employee wellness and engagement into your program or workplace to strengthen participation across teams and hierarchies.

Staying healthy at work isn’t always easy. With anywhere from 8-10 hours in the office, healthy snacks at work are a must to keep employees energized and focused. So what are the best healthy snacks for the office? SnackNation reached out to 40 health experts, from nutritionists to dietitians, and asked them “What are your favorite healthy snacks to keep at the office (or wherever you work) and why?"

The GiftCard Partners team is still buzzing about everything we learned at the
7th Annual Employer Healthcare & Benefits Congress. Thousands of professionals, from HR executives, brokers, insurance companies, service providers and more showed up to get insight into all aspects of the changing healthcare landscape through forums, sessions and speakers. It was our goal to get a better understanding of the priority level (if any) being placed on corporate wellness programs and the level of engagement that was being seen within them. Wellness programs are a huge topic and have been for quite a few years but it's important to understand what exactly makes them successful. Here are our 3 takeaways from the show (from a corporate wellness point of view).

This year marks the 10th anniversary of CVS's decision to stop selling tobacco products, a bold move that transformed the company's role in public health. When CVS first made the decision in 2014 to remove tobacco from its 7,800 stores, the move was seen as controversial by some but groundbreaking by others. Since then, CVS has evolved from a retail pharmacy chain to a healthcare leader, and its commitment to public health has been underscored by significant research and industry recognition.

Nearly every nation in the world is working to improve their healthcare delivery systems. The United States, in particular, has the most expensive healthcare system in the world with health status indicators that are only average in comparison with less costly health systems of other countries. Chronic illnesses and aging populations have placed a substantial burden on the US healthcare system. Nearly three-quarters of Americans over 65 suffer from chronic illnesses and half of them have more than 1 chronic illness.