McCarthy Holdings, Inc., comprised of McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and MC Industrial, Inc., was recently recognized as the Healthiest Employer in St. Louis for companies with 1,500-4,999 employees. Healthiest Employers is an innovative awards program recognizing organizations that proactively shape the health of their employees. McCarthy’s receipt of top honors in St. Louis comes on the heels of the builder’s selection as a Healthiest Employer finalist in Sacramento and taking the number two spot in the Bay Area.
“McCarthy’s never-ending mission is to be The Best Builder in America,” commented McCarthy President and Chief Operating Officer Derek Glanvill. “As a 100 percent employee-owned company , our holistic approach to wellness flows logically from this mission. In addition, as healthcare costs in America soar, McCarthy employee-owners understand the impact this can have on our business and the role they can play in helping to manage this. Focusing on wellness together, we can to be more productive partners, better family members and in turn potentially control rising costs through prevention.”
Developed and launched in 2010, McCarthy Build for Life is a comprehensive wellness program designed to encourage all employees and their families to strive toward optimal mental, physical and emotional well-being. The program focuses on four key areas: Awareness, Prevention, Activity, and Lifestyle & Stress.
“When it comes to our construction projects, our approach has always been to invest a significant effort up front to prevent issues before they occur,” continued Glanvill. “We have extended this same proactive approach to our Build for Life program, encouraging employees to make wellness a part of their everyday lives.”
To jump start McCarthy’s wellness program in 2010, the company launched an Activity Challenge. All employees received a free pedometer and used an online step tracking program to log daily steps. More than 50% of employees participated in the program, logging 184,974,999 steps. The 2011 Activity Challenge, now including spouses and partners, was completed July 8, 2011 with participants logging 222,775,416 steps.
“The McCarthy Build for Life Program is a grassroots program, supported by Wellness Champions in each McCarthy and MC Industrial office,” explained McCarthy Vice President, Human Resources Al Berardi. “These Champions communicate with employees in their region and encourage involvement.”
Key program features include:
- Rewards program designed to help increase the health of all McCarthy partners while, at the same time, controlling healthcare costs over the long-term. Employees and their spouse/partner can earn points for completing proactive, health-related activities that will be directly applied toward reduced medical insurance premiums;
- Complimentary health screenings for McCarthy employees and spouses/partners, including blood pressure screening, BMI/waist circumference checks, cholesterol/HDL/Glucose screenings, and Prostate Specific Antigen screenings;
- Quarterly wellness newsletter delivered to homes of all employees, in partnership with the Mayo Clinic, and discount subscriptions to health-related publications;
- Regular educational wellness webinars available to employees and their families;
- Wellness areas in all main office locations and at all-employee biannual meetings featuring material on health, nutrition, activity and stress/lifestyle management;
- Wide array of company-sponsored wellness employee events
“McCarthy has made great strides in focusing on improving employee health both here in St. Louis and across America,” concluded Glanvill. “This award honors many leading St. Louis organizations, and McCarthy is proud to be included in this group.”
About Healthiest Employers
Healthiest Employers is an organization dedicated to promoting wellness in business. The mission is to educate on the value of a healthy workforce and reward organizations that are wellness leaders. To be considered for the Healthiest Employers award, an organization must meet: be a business, not-for-profit or government entity; employ a minimum of two full time employees; demonstrate evidence of an employee wellness program; and complete the online application.
About McCarthy
McCarthy is one of the nation’s oldest and largest American-owned commercial contractors. Headquartered in St. Louis, the firm has offices in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Newport Beach, San Francisco and Sacramento. Repeatedly honored as a Best Place to Work, McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned .
