Rachel Sapoznik, who is on this month’s cover, is a business leader transcending what you would expect from someone in her line of work. I’ve had the pleasure to know Rachel most of my business journalism career in South Florida, and she’s always able to stand out from the crowd.
In 2015, she released A Passion for Wellness: Healthy Employees, Healthy Bottom Line, a book for employers on the value of promoting healthy lifestyles.
“To me, I’m trying to create a corporate culture,” she told Associate Editor Andrea Richard, who wrote our cover story. “I want to teach people to move from ‘what if I get sick’ to ‘I want to stay healthy. I’m going to eat properly, I’m going to exercise.’ Does that mean you’ll never have cancer? No. Does that mean you’ll never have a heart attack. No. But you will be a stronger person to get over it than if you had never taken care of yourself.”
For her customers, Sapoznik takes proactive steps, such as arranging for nurses and technicians to visit workplaces and check people’s arteries. “It takes 15 minutes. We had people, we saved their lives because maybe their arteries were 90 percent clogged and they didn’t even know it. Just last week, two people were sent to the doctor,” she says.
Employers are not only doing something good for their employees, but also helping their bottom lines by reducing health care costs.
Sapoznik embraces that philosophy in her own workplace, where some employees can be found sitting on fitness balls as they work to help strengthen their core.
A final note: As I write this, Hurricane Irma is threatening South Florida. I’m hoping it’s not as bad as the 1926 Miami hurricane, which I blogged about on SFBWmag.com. I wish everyone the best in coping with this hurricane season.
