Cooper Wellness Strategies’ client Kristin Wall of Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Corporation (LWCC) shares her testimonial with us. As president and CEO of LWCC, she says that being a client has impacted her life in a personal way and inspired her to transform her company’s culture.
My wellness journey started more than a decade ago when I first began going to Cooper Clinic for my executive physical. During my time there, I learned so much about the importance of focusing on personal wellness. Although I was only there for one day each year, I learned that it is what you do every day after that really impacts your life. My personal experience with Cooper Clinic changed the way I viewed dedicating time to my wellness and I decided to make some real changes—and empower others to do the same.
I knew I had to share the great work of Cooper Clinic so I brought my fellow LWCC executives to Cooper for a retreat to learn about the importance of being “Fit to Lead.” During this retreat, we began to realize you can’t lead others or an organization without first taking care of yourself.
Building on this new knowledge, I discovered Gerald Drefahl, a local wellness expert who focused on kinesiology, and his companies, FITT and Kinesics, which are centered on the importance of functional movement. Being in the workers’ comp business, we know how critical mobility, range of motion and overall fitness are to injury prevention. Through a pilot program with FITT, we experienced the benefits of the FITT-Kinesics methodology. Participants from our company saw improved range of motion, decreased pain and improved productivity. After this, we knew we had to bring this type of program to our entire organization.
We then worked to bring a best-in-class experience to LWCC. We knew Cooper Wellness Strategies Cooper Wellness Strategies was the expert we wanted to operate our facility due to its great success in developing corporate wellness programs focusing on all facets of wellness, from nutrition to cardio health. Combining the Cooper and FITT models offers our employees the best of both worlds. Together, both teams developed exercise programs built around a functional movement model utilizing cable-based equipment, which are utilized daily in our on-site fitness center.
The objective of our wellness program is to challenge our colleagues to adopt a healthy living mindset so they and their families can live healthier and longer lives. We want to create a program that removes barriers to exercise and movement by meeting each employee where they are. We want to encourage our team members to envision where they could be by starting with one decision at a time and taking small steps to get there.
Since the launch of our wellness program and the redesign of our fitness center in July 2018, we have seen exponential growth in engagement and participation along with unmatched success. Employee participation with the fitness center is at an all-time high, with 73% of eligible employees having memberships. Our team has innovated through the pandemic and beyond, introducing popular virtual classes to allow for prioritizing wellness even when working remotely. With Cooper’s leadership, we have also integrated wellness beyond the fitness center with our LiveWell program, a formalized commitment to all our employees to provide a renewed focus on whole-self health, including nutrition and physical, mental and financial wellness.
The Cooper Wellness Strategies team has been integral to the success of our approach and program for LWCC. Through this partnership, we have begun to make a positive impact in the lives of our colleagues. We are fortunate to work with the Cooper Wellness Strategies team on this and many other initiatives and are pleased to spread their knowledge and positive messages to our organization and employees.
Kristin W. Wall
LWCC President & Chief Executive Officer
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