When it comes to offering corporate wellness programs, organizations naturally focus on their own employees. But as an educational institution, Trocaire College has gone the extra mile to improve the health and well-being of both its employees and student body.

The South Buffalo-based college currently employs about 100 full-time faculty and staff members, while serving 1,300 students. Over the past 15 months, Trocaire officials have worked closely with Independent Health to enhance and expand the college’s wellness efforts. 

“Since the entire Trocaire community matters to us, we felt it was important to offer a wellness program that appealed not only to our faculty and staff members, but to our students as well,” said Genevieve Kruly, who serves as Director of Wellness for Trocaire. “Our goal was to build a program around educational outreach and a variety of activities that would inspire and empower individuals to take responsibility for their own health and wellness.”

Despite having to navigate the many challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Trocaire was able to successfully roll out a new, more robust wellness program last fall.

“Getting a new program off the ground isn’t easy, especially when you’re in the midst of a pandemic. But, as it turns out, the timing has actually worked in our favor. With so many people working from home or studying remotely, we’ve had to do most things virtually. People have seemed to be very receptive to that. They like being able to participate when it’s most convenient for them.”

Tracy Rozewicz, MS, PHR, HR Business Partner for Trocaire

Both Rozewicz and Kruly have been instrumental in bringing the idea of a revamped wellness program to fruition at Trocaire. They currently co-chair the program’s wellness committee, which is made up of faculty, staff, students and an Independent Health corporate wellness specialist. The 15-person committee meets monthly during the school year to create and implement programming.

Activities and initiatives developed by Trocaire’s wellness committee include:

  • Online “lunch and learn” presentations that have focused on a wide range of topics, such as the importance of stretching and moving, reducing lower back pain, incorporating meditation and mindfulness into your day, and eating healthy meals and snacks.
  • Monthly self-care chats that have allowed faculty, staff and students to connect virtually so that they can safely socialize and reduce feelings of loneliness and isolation during these challenging times.
  • A virtual health and wellness fair that featured a series of short presentations from local experts about exercise, mental health, financial health, health insurance and COVID-19.
  • Onsite health screenings that gave employees the chance to have their waist circumference, blood pressure and cholesterol levels measured, and then talk with a clinician about their results and what they can do to improve or maintain their numbers.
  • Onsite flu and COVID-19 vaccination clinics.
  • Bi-weekly wellness walks around Cazenovia Park and the surrounding neighborhood.

In addition, Trocaire employees were recently introduced to FitWorks®, Independent Health’s online wellness program that gives participants the chance to earn points by completing health and wellness-related activities. This includes an annual routine checkup and blood work, completing a health assessment and attending any wellness program activity. Based on their level of participation, Trocaire employees will be eligible for rewards and prize giveaways throughout the year.

“It’s exciting that we’ve been able to offer as much as we have during the past year,” said Rozewicz. “The feedback we’ve received about the program has been overwhelmingly positive. Now we have the chance to use that feedback to really fine tune our approach and develop new activities that our employees and students would find helpful and engaging.”

We are here to help you

As a local leader in worksite wellness, Independent Health has a long history of providing Western New York-based organizations and companies with the tools, resources and knowledge needed to keep both their employees and their bottom line healthy. Through our FitWorks® Prime program, our corporate wellness team works one-on-one with large group employers to develop and manage employee wellness programs that are customized for their culture and benefit strategies.

If you are interested in learning more about our FitWorks Prime program, please contact your broker or an Independent Health benefit consultant today. You can also visit our “RedShirt Treatment” website to see some of the ways Independent Health is making it easier for our community to get healthy and stay healthy.