Hartford Business Journal

www.HartfordBusiness.com • September 21, 2020 • Hartford Business Journal 21 CONNECTICUT'S HEALTHIEST EMPLOYERS 2020 CONTENTS 23 CATEGORY: 2 TO 99 EMPLOYEES 1st Place | Diversified Group Brokerage 2nd Place | Burke Aerospace (Turbine Technologies Inc.) 24 CATEGORY: 100 TO 2,500 EMPLOYEES 1st Place | Brightview Senior Living 2nd Place | Harman International Industries Inc. 3rd Place | Ocean State Job Lot 26 CATEGORY: 2,501 TO 4,999 EMPLOYEES 1st Place | Gilbane Inc. 2nd Place | AmTrust Financial 3rd Place | AAA Northeast 4th Place | Benchmark Senior Living 27 CATEGORY: 5,000-PLUS EMPLOYEES 1st Place | Meredith Corp. 2nd Place | U-Haul 3rd Place | Burns & McDonnell 4th Place | Prospect Medical Connecticut: Eastern CT Health Network & Waterbury Health Meet CT's healthiest employers H artford Business Journal's third annual Healthiest Employ- ers awards recognize companies that are dedicated to employee health and safety as well as results-oriented well- ness programs. The Healthi- est Employers awards program was done in partnership with Springbuk, a privately held technology and data research firm that determined the finalists and winners using its own scoring methodology. Companies that participated in the program had to complete an online assessment representing a holistic approach to wellbeing. Com- panies were then ranked based on their performance on the following six measures: culture and leader- ship commitment; foundational components; strategic planning; communication and marketing; programming and interven- tions; and reporting and analytics. The winners and finalists are featured in the pages that follow. We hope that you find this special sec- tion informative and that it spurs ideas on how to improve the health of your workforce. Greg Bordonaro | Editor, Hartford Business Journal PLATINUM SPONSOR: PRODUCED BY: EXPERTS CORNER Pandemic offers a chance to reset our personal wellness By Katie McDonald T his crisis can break us, but what if it makes us? What if we wake up to the seductive ways in which we fell asleep? We are being called home to our shel- ters and to ourselves. We have been breathlessly busy. And maybe a virus that attacks the lungs has a message for us. Retreat. Come home. Now is the time to ob- serve our habits and renegotiate the relationship we have with our- selves. Most of us have been trying to outrun the quiet where self- reflection and the truth reside and where we observe the ways in which we may have become unconscious. This great pause reminds us there is nowhere to hide. There is not enough booze, junk food, Netflix, busyness, or business to disguise the fact that we must rise to the responsibility of taking care of our- selves. The cacophony of our lives has drowned out the desperate plea for a pace that nourishes rather than punishes. Rarely do our teachers appear as we would expect or want. Cloaked as a virus, this teacher expects us to show up for class. And we want to learn everything we can. Here is our homework that takes us beyond the basics and leans to- wards the bodacious: Organize: Our delusion of control is gone. Let's gain some mastery over our space by organizing one spot every day. Setting a timer for 15 minutes, we can liberate ourselves from whatever no longer serves us, appreciate what we have, and set ourselves up for feeling in control. Plan the day: Embrace the gulp of white space on our calendars as a canvas. A vision for the day provides scaffolding in a world that feels wobbly. Checking in with ourselves daily allows us to get a read on our capacity in terms of energy, external commitments and family demands. We are collectively compromised so we need to be real. Identifying three things we commit to complete and doing them, we set ourselves up to be successful. Defeated, we stay stuck. News limits: Our minds are the gates to our immune systems and we must fortify that fortress. Turn- ing off the news reminds us of our responsibility to cultivate our own thoughts, and tame our minds. We need to discern how much is enough for us to feel informed without tip- ping into panic. Ask: Does this information empower or debilitate? The same applies to social media. Screw "comparisonitis," especially now as we need to strengthen and prop ourselves up. Boundaries: What was a bedroom is now an office. Where there were distinctions like school time, work time, family time, there are now none. What was meal time is now a day-long buffet. Blurred lines every- where. Chaos magnifies fear so let's gain as much clarity as possible. Establish a start and end time for work, school, etc. Commit to a con- sistent meal time to quiet the urge to graze. Using the phone's alarm, enact the time-tested bell ringing to signify transitions. When the lines between us feel pencil thin and a Sharpie border is what's needed, we can find a nook or favorite chair that we can call our own. A time out. This crisis will change us. Let's make sure we have some say in how. This collective exhale liberates us from the tyranny of our expecta- tions. We may not be able to go out so let's go inward. Katie McDonald , CEO and founder of bnourished, is a self- care strategist. Katie McDonald

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