BY FERNANDA FIGUEROA
This school year, HCISD is embarking on a fresh approach to workplace wellness with their High Five to Thrive (Transforming Health through Resources, Inspiration, Vitality and Education) campaign to create an environment where one can thrive as a whole person and a community.
“Most of us spend more of our waking hours at work than we do at home,” said Sandra Flinn, HCISD’s Coordinator for Athletic Advancement, Aquatics, and Wellness. “So, what can we do as an HCISD community to help make that workday even better?”
Working with It’s Time Texas and The American Heart Association, the High Five to Thrive campaign will provide a yearlong strategy to reorganize HCISD’s staff wellness based on the department’s outlook of staff wellness.
High Five to Thrive will help employees better understand what wellness is.
“Sometimes people think staff wellness is something that’s done to them, instead of done for them,” Flinn said. “Wellness isn’t just about running a 5K or eating kale. It’s really more than that. It’s your mental health, your physical health, your spiritual health, the whole 10 yards.”
Currently, the High Five to Thrive campaign is working to create a team that will help bridge the gap from idea to action at each campus and department. This team of individuals will take each initiative to their campus or department and help implement it.
“The next step that I am in right now is to work on gathering applications from campuses across the district for people that would like to become a High Five Hero for their campus, department, or their building,” Flinn said. “Those people will be a team that will work together to produce the best of the best initiatives.”
High Five to Thrive is distinguishing itself from previous employee wellness campaigns by creating an inclusive, holistic approach not just for teachers, but for other HCISD employees too such as bus drivers, custodians, and more.
“I think [High Five to Thrive] is going to be different,” Flinn said. “It’s going to be an inclusive, holistic approach, not just about coming out and walking the track and emails that so many people delete. We are really going to do our best to reach everyone where they are.”
High Five to Thrive is working to re-design the employee wellness website to ensure staff have access to inclusive information. The campaign will also work to integrate wellness throughout the district with vitality events such as healthcare fairs to create a culture of wellness.
Overall, High Five to Thrive has a goal to utilize innovative ways to transform how staff receive information and encourage them to view wellness in a different light.
“We hope the things that we can pass on to our employees here at HCISD, they may take out to the community, they take back home to their family, and the circle connects,” Flinn said.
