Well4Life at SciMetrika: 

Case Study 

National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion 

Division of Population Health

With training and effort, 

employers of all sizes and 

types can plan and put into 

action a workplace health 

program. Employers can 

learn from the experiences 

of employers like SciMetrika 

about how to plan strategies 

and anticipate implementation 

challenges. 

CS257190D

Organization Background 

Scimetrika

« Established in 2001

« Private firm

« Industry sector: professional, 

scientific, and technical services

« Locations: Research Triangle 

Park, North Carolina; Atlanta, 

Georgia; and Washington, DC

« 115 employees

« 70% Female, 30% Male

SciMetrika is a privately held 

scientific and public health 

research organization focused 

solely on improving human 

health. The executive team and 

a multidisciplinary staff of public 

health and technical professionals 

bring rigor and innovation to 

solve complex population health 

challenges. Their work spans 

the disciplines of statistics and 

epidemiology, health behavior 

and health education, program 

development and program 

evaluation, technical assistance, 

management consulting, and health 

information technology. SciMetrika is 

dedicated to advancing population 

health, and that includes its own 

employees. Human Resources 

Director Angie Grabko serves 

as SciMetrika’s worksite health 

promotion program coordinator. 

Participating in CDC’s Work@Health® Program

Before participating in the Work@Health® program, Angie Grabko 

was the only person involved in developing and implementing 

SciMetrika’s health promotion activities. She helped support a 

healthy work environment, but the company did not have a formal 

program in which efforts were coordinated or cohesive. For instance, 

SciMetrika had a no-smoking policy on campus, and provided 

reimbursements for gym memberships and Weight Watchers® 

classes, but these efforts were not linked together in a 

comprehensive program. 

SciMetrika also participated in Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s (BCBS) 

Healthy Outcomes program, which supports employee 

health by providing personal outreach and health coaching for 

covered employees.

Well-designed, science-based, and comprehensive workplace 

wellness programs can have a positive effect on health and financial 

outcomes. The Work@Health® program was designed to train 

employers how to improve the health of their workers and their 

families through science-based prevention and wellness strategies 

using interventions that address chronic health conditions. Grabko 

heard about the Work@Health® training program through SciMetrika’s 

health benefits broker. She 

participated in the program’s 

hands-on training session in 

Raleigh, North Carolina, in 

June 2014. 

After the training, 

participants in Work@

Health® received 6-10 months 

of technical assistance 

in the form of coaching, 

webinars, and forums for 

interaction with other 

employer participants. 

Grabko especially liked the ongoing support she received from 

technical assistance provider after the day-long workshop, and found 

the resources and materials provided to be helpful in her efforts to 

expand and better coordinate SciMetrika’s health program offerings. 
Employers selected to participate in 

Work@Health® were assigned to one of 

three models, all of which delivered the 

same comprehensive workplace health 

curriculum. 

1. The hands-on model was an onsite instructor-led one-day training 

workshop held in one of six regional 

locations. 

2. The online model allowed employers 

to progress through the curriculum 

independently over several weeks 

using a web-based learning platform.

3. The blended model included a 

combination of hands-on and online 

learning strategies.

SciMetrika Employee Health Strategies

Policies

• No Smoking Policy.

• Healthy Catering Policy.

• Gym Reimbursement.

Programs

• Smoking Cessation Program.

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

• Weight Watchers© Offering.

• 10,000 Step Challenge.

• Lunch and Learn Sessions.

• Health Coaching Through Blue Cross 

Blue Shield.

Environmental Supports and Materials

• Healthy Snacks in Break Rooms.

• Onsite Nutritionist.

• Produce Box Delivery Through 

Community. 

• Supported Agriculture (CSA).

• Treadmill Desks.

• Monthly Wellness Newsletter.

• Wellness Brochures.

Through the training, she learned the importance of 

having a structured and organized plan for her worksite 

health promotion activities. She also learned the most 

effective plans emphasize creating a healthy workplace 

culture by integrating environmental supports and 

policy changes with lifestyle programs designed to 

improve individual employees’ health behaviors. 

Together, these form a more comprehensive approach to 

maximize employees’ access and opportunities to make 

lifestyle changes. 

The worksite health promotion experts at Grabko’s 

training session were able to walk her through each step 

to develop and implement a program, and to direct her 

toward resources to support each step.

Program Overview

Forming a Wellness Committee

After participating in the Work@Health® training, 

Grabko realized she could not successfully tackle 

SciMetrika’s health promotion efforts singlehandedly. She surveyed SciMetrika employees 

about their willingness to serve on a new SciMetrika 

wellness committee and many expressed interest. 

She selected six volunteers from the offices in 

Durham, Atlanta, and Washington, DC, who had all 

been active in worksite health activities. In selecting 

committee members, Grabko chose a good crosssection of employees from different locations, 

organizational units, and job types to increase 

engagement at all worksites. 

The committee meets monthly during paid work 

time. It has accomplished several things in its first 

year. It branded the worksite health promotion 

program Well4Life. To enhance staff buy-in, the 

committee held a contest among employees to 

design a program logo. Then it developed a program 

plan using health assessment data from its BCBS 

health plan. The committee analyzed the data and 

matched it to what it learned about employees’ 

interests in worksite health promotion from the 

annual health interest survey it conducted after the 

Work@Health® training.

Setting Priorities on the Basis of Needs 

and Interests

Applying program planning strategies from the 

Work@Health® curriculum, the committee used 

results from the annual employee interest survey Page 2 of 6
Page 3 of 6

to implement strategies targeting three key 

areas: healthy eating, physical activity, and stress 

management. The committee wanted to make 

sure the strategies that were developed would 

achieve specific health outcomes for its employees. 

To accomplish this, the planning involved creating 

SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, 

time-bound) goals for each area and creating an 

implementation timeline. Two SMART goals it set 

were increasing physical activity by 25% and reducing 

the number of employees who use tobacco products 

by 10% by January 2015. The wellness committee 

developed an implementation timeline to provide a 

quick snapshot of the entire program, which has been 

a useful planning tool for the committee.

Focus on Healthy Eating

To increase healthy eating, the committee developed 

a healthy catering policy for all on-site meetings. It 

also replaced the high-sugar and high-fat snacks in 

the breakroom with healthy snacks, and organized 

a weekly produce box program that delivers fresh 

produce to the workplace for employees who sign up 

to participate. SciMetrika also invited nutritionists and 

health educators from BCBS in North Carolina to do 

lunch-and-learn presentations. Some topics that have 

been presented include holiday eating and stress 

management. 

The nutritionists also provide one-on-one 

consultations with employees in person or over the 

phone, as a covered benefit in their health insurance 

plan. SciMetrika also pays for the nutritionist 

consultations for those employees not covered by the 

company’s health insurance plan.

Increasing Physical Activity One Step at a Time

To increase 

employees’ physical 

activity, the wellness 

committee started 

a step challenge 

to encourage all 

employees to take 

at least 10,000 

steps each day. 

To support the 

challenge, SciMetrika purchased $11 pedometers 

for each employee. Employees who reached 

different milestones received $25 gift cards for their 

participation and a $200 donation to a charitable 

organization. As of July 2015, SciMetrika had 

distributed $500 in gift card prizes. At the end of 

the program, SciMetrika will hold a drawing for a 

wearable health tracking device and several gift cards. 

The grand prize for the drawing is a wearable tracking 

device. The second-place prize will be a $75 gift 

certificate for Dick’s Sporting Goods and third prize 

is a $50 gift certificate. The Work@Health® curriculum 

emphasized the power of recognition as an incentive. 

SciMetrika’s wellness committee prominently 

featured the top steppers on the company’s Intranet 

site and step challenge “wall of fame.” As of July 2015, 

SciMetrika had 27% overall active participation in the 

Step Challenge, including 100% of employees at the 

Washington, DC, location, 45% of employees at the 

Durham location, and 12% at the Atlanta location.

The wellness 

committee also 

changed the work 

environment to 

promote physical 

activity at work 

by purchasing 

treadmill desks 

that SciMetrika 

employees can 

sign up to use 

in the North 

Carolina and 

Atlanta offices. 

Grabko used seed 

funding provided 

through the Work@

Health® program 

for the purchase of the walking workstations, and 

she planned to purchase more of them if employee 

feedback was positive.

Addressing Stress

The wellness committee’s third focus area was 

employee stress. The employee interest survey data 

indicated that several of the employee’s top concerns 

were stress management and financial wellness. The 

wellness committee held a workshop to explain the 

connections between eating, exercise, and stress. The 

committee also invited the company’s 401K vendor to 

SciMetrika’s Step Challenge “Wall of Fame.”

Photo provided by SciMetrika. 

Walking Workstation at SciMetrika.

Photo provided by SciMetrika.
present a webinar on retirement savings, credit-card 

debt, and other financial management issues. Forty 

percent of employees attended the sessions. Before 

Work@Health®, Grabko was unaware of some of the 

free resources and services provided by vendors on 

topics such as stress management that could be used 

to enhance SciMetrika’s health promotion program. 

Using the CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard to 

Identify Evidence-Based Interventions

Finally, Grabko worked with her Work@Health® 

technical assistance provider, and used a planning 

and implementation checklist tool and the 

CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard, both included in 

the Work@Health® resources, to determine what 

additional policies and supports SciMetrika could put 

in place. The Health ScoreCard provided evidencebased strategies that have been proven to affect 

employee health. 

Using the Health ScoreCard as a guide, Grabko 

expanded the no-smoking policy to include 

e-cigarettes, and also offered smoking-cessation 

reimbursement for FDA-approved medications 

through BCBS, in addition to its implementation of 

other wellness policies like the healthy 

catering policy. 

Program Success

Like all of the employers participating in Work@

Health®, SciMetrika used the CDC Worksite Health 

ScoreCard to assess how it had evidence-based health 

promotion strategies in place before it started the 

program in 2014 and again at the end of the program 

in 2015. The strategies in the ScoreCard cover health 

promoting counseling services, environmental 

supports, policies, health plan benefits, and 

other worksite programs shown to be effective in 

preventing heart disease, stroke, and related

 health conditions. 

SciMetrika more than tripled its total ScoreCard 

score to 210 from 54 out of a possible 264 points. The 

company showed most improvement in the number 

of evidence-based strategies it offered on nutrition, 

physical activity, stress management, and depression. 

Examples of evidence-based strategies SciMetrika put 

in place during their Work@Health® training using the 

ScoreCard that it did not have in place in 

2014, included:

• Having a written policy or formal communication 

that makes healthier food and beverage choices 

available in vending machines.

• Subsidizing or providing discounts on healthier 

foods and beverages offered in vending 

machines, cafeterias, snack bars, and other 

purchase points.

• Providing or subsidizing physical fitness 

assessments, follow-up counseling, and exercise 

recommendations, either onsite or through a 

community exercise facility.

• Providing organized individual or group physical 

activity programs. 

• Providing stress management programs.

• Providing training for managers on identifying 

and reducing workplace stress-related issues.

SciMetrika more than tripled its score in the 

Organizational Supports Module that assesses how 

organizations have a foundation in place to support 

and maintain a workplace health promotion program. 

Notably, SciMetrika’s 2015 ScoreCard indicated that 

its program now has an active health promotion 

committee and an annual budget or dedicated 

funding for health promotion programs.

The Health ScoreCard is a free tool available to 

any employer interested in assessing how 

comprehensive its workplace health promotion and 

Page 4 of 6

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Organizational Supports

Nutrition

Physical Activity

Stress

Depression

2015 Score 2014 Score

CDC Worksite Health ScoreCard Overall Score 

in Wellness Programming 2014-2015
disease prevention program is, to identify program 

gaps, and to prioritize investments for a number of 

health topics. 

Learning from Work@Health®

Immediately following the full-day Work@Health® 

training session in Raleigh, North Carolina, all of the 

participants in the session with Grabko indicated 

they understood how to apply what they learned in 

the training to their jobs and 95% said they would 

be able to use what they learned from the training at 

their jobs. After completing the technical assistance 

portion of the program, all participants were asked 

to list the top three lessons they learned from the 

Work@Health® program. For Grabko they were:

1. Planning and implementing a health promotion 

program is time consuming, but an important step 

in the process.

2. The true return-on-investment for a program will 

take time to be realized.

3. You need support from top management to 

be successful.

In November 2014, at the end of the technicalassistance period following the training, participants 

from the Raleigh session were also asked what they 

did with the information they learned in the program. 

How Work@Health® Trainees in Raleigh, NC Hands-On Model Are Using the Information They Learned in the Work@Health Program

Percentage of Participants

Shared it with others in my organization. 73%

Collected data to develop worksite health program. 60%

Engaged leadership for support. 53%

Developed a worksite health plan and have begun to take action. 40%

The Importance of Leadership Support

Grabko doesn’t believe that any of the enhancements 

to SciMetrika’s workplace health promotion program 

would have occurred had she not participated in 

Work@Health®. What she learned about creating a 

wellness committee helped her get the support she 

needed to not only maintain, but to expand worksite 

health promotion efforts. 

The leadership support she receives also has played 

an instrumental role in the expansion of the program. 

The CEO of the company is very supportive, and as 

the leader of a public health organization, he takes a 

great interest in ensuring that SciMetrika employees 

have the opportunity to be healthy at work. 

Grabko also attributes SciMetrika’s success to its 

employees’ commitment to health. She estimated 

that 80% of SciMetrika’s employees have master 

of public health degrees. As a member of the 

senior leadership team, Grabko was able to talk 

about worksite health promotion efforts at each 

“team huddle.” She now has a dedicated budget for 

worksite health promotion and SciMetrika’s 2015 

benefit-renewal report showed no increase in health 

insurance claims. In fact, claims were below average, 

resulting in no increases in monthly premiums. 

Page 5 of 6

Challenges

SciMetrika’s wellness committee has found it 

challenging to engage geographically dispersed 

employees in health promotion activities. The 

committee has tried to address this challenge 

by using the company’s Intranet site, SciNet. It 

developed a page dedicated to health and wellness. 

On it, the committee posts program information, 

including a wellness calendar of events, so that 

all SciMetrika locations have access. Grabko also 
Page 6 of 6

purchased monthly newsletters through WELCOA to 

post on SciNet. The wellness committee learned from 

the 2015 employee survey that 80% of employees 

preferred to receive information through e-mail 

versus SciNet. This was important information for the 

committee’s communication planning. 

In many instances described above, Grabko and the 

committee used data to make decisions related to 

program decisions. The committee tried healthy 

vending, but found employees weren’t using the 

vending machine for healthy snacks. As a result, 

SciMetrika replaced the unhealthy snacks in the 

breakroom with free healthy snacks. Grabko realized 

the committee should have done some research 

before making changes and it would have learned 

that employees weren’t willing to pay for healthier 

vending options. 

What’s Next?

Over the next 12 months, SciMetrika has planned the following activities for worksite health promotion: 

• Continue enhancing the program and using survey results to tailor efforts, such as how to address chronic 

health issues on the basis of the results from their most recent health risk assessment.

• Consider purchasing more exercise equipment, like the treadmill desk, that will allow employees to get more 

physical activity at work.

• Offer a SciMetrika weight loss challenge. 

• Offer workplace meditation.

• Develop a healthy cookbook with recipes submitted by employees and their families. 

• Strengthen and expand current activities.

The Work@Health® employer-training program is an initiative of the Centers for Disease 

Control and Prevention (CDC) to promote workplace wellness through employer 

education, training, and technical assistance. Work@Health® training provides 

employers with the knowledge and tools through a comprehensive curricula to promote 

good health in their work places to prevent or reduce chronic illness and disability, and 

improve productivity.