On the unseasonably chilly Thursday morning of July 1, 2010, Free & Clear employees brought warmth to Seattle streets in a spontaneous outburst of celebration - a celebration of the freedom from tobacco, flash-mob style!

The Freedom from Tobacco mob, made up of Free & Clear employees and Seattle Chorus volunteers, gathered at Westlake Center around 11:45am Thursday to sing and dance to an a capella version of George Michael’s “Freedom 90.”  The event began with a single voice shouting Michael’s lyrics, “I think there’s something you should know!” and ended with a chorus of voices shouting “Freedom from Tobacco! 1-800-QUIT-NOW!”

After weeks of undercover planning sessions and secret rehearsals, the Free & Clear Flash mobbers uncovered the choreography perfected by Recruitment Marketing Manager, Reed Dunn, who acted as co-creative captain and choreographer. “I feel like a proud dad right now,” Dunn said Thursday, reflecting upon the hard work put in by the dancers, videographers, and organizers over the past two months.

Free & Clear’s Freedom from Tobacco flash mob event was created to give employees an opportunity to celebrate the freedom they help others achieve, as well as to spread awareness of the state quitlines that we help operate on a daily basis.

"My favorite thing about yesterday was the sense of camaraderie the event helped to foster," said Quit Coach Duncan Shea. "We should be proud to work in an organization that is willing to shake off the dust, shun the suit and tie and focus on engaging our participants and (very importantly) employees as humans who need something different on occasion."

Of course we made sure to record the event - a video of the flash mob is now live on YouTube and has also been posted to our Facebook page. Please watch, comment, and share with your friends and family!

Happy Independence Day from Free & Clear.

Sometimes, caught up in the everydayness of work, it can be hard to remember how important what we’re doing really is or how far the impact reaches. We at Free & Clear have helped almost 1 million people make positive changes in their lives! As a celebration and reminder, Free & Clear's Making A Difference (MAD) Committee created the Seeds of Change project--so we can have a tangible symbol of our accomplishments and remember that we each are helping to make that difference.

In Free & Clear's main lobby, we have placed a display case where our employees donate a seed for each life changed - and to help us all see what 1 million really looks like. I am happy to report that we steadily continue to add seeds to the 100,000 seeds already gathered last year.

The seeds are a wonderful analogy of the work that we do here.  Each day of work at Free & Clear our programs help many individuals quit tobacco and make many other healthy changes in their lives. Each time someone makes a healthy change in his or her life, it affects more than just that individual. For example, other smokers may become inspired to quit. Then friends, family members, and others in their community are less exposed to second-hand smoke. The positive health effects are great and ripple outward, and it goes beyond health too…when someone quits, they regain time, energy, money, and attention that they can now direct toward other goals and dreams.  Like a seed, each person we help to make healthy changes can grow and spread more positive change!

We love to hear stories about what the Seeds of Change display and reaching the milestone of 1 million participants means to each person, so we have invited those donating seeds to submit stories as well. We will be featuring different stories that are submitted as the Seeds of Change project moves forward. Here is our first:

November, 2009
Kathy Edris, Senior Manager, Clinical & Behavioral Sciences

My name is Kathy Edris and I have been working at Free & Clear for over 20 years (15 with weight management and 6 with tobacco). I have seen a lot of change during this time but the one thing that has remained constant is the positive impact we have on people’s lives.  I know some people can’t imagine staying at an organization for over 20 years but I can’t imagine being anywhere else.  For this reason, I have donated 1,000 seeds for each year I have had the privilege and honor to truly make a difference in the lives of others.

Check back soon for more!

As Ken Wassum discussed recently in his post, "Want to be a Nonsmoker in 2010? Make Plans to Quit Now," the New Year is the most popular time to try to quit tobacco. With just a little less than two weeks to go, many smokers are weighing their options, contemplating what life would be like without tobacco, and thinking about the reasons they may choose to quit tobacco for good. If you are a tobacco user, you may have loved ones who have requested that you quit -- for your health and for theirs. Recently John Mellencamp's son started a campaign on Facebook to try to convince his dad to quit smoking. It's a heartfelt request, and a noble cause, but is a request from a loved one enough to make a quit stick?

It really depends on the individual. In order to successfully quit tobacco, it's important to find a reason to quit that that strongly, personally resonates with you. Quitting tobacco can be difficult, and having a personalized goal of better health, better finances, or better relationships with others will help you maintain focus and give you meaning during the quitting process. 

What is your reason? If you're uncertain, it may help to ask yourself the following questions:

• What are some things I used to do that I no longer can because I have to make sure my smokes are with me?
• What kind of damage am I doing to my body? How will this affect me in 10 years?
• How much money do I spend on tobacco products each year? What else could I be doing with that money?
• When I quit smoking, how will my loved ones benefit?

Of course, these are just a few questions to help get you started. If you are interested in discovering other great reasons to quit, consider downloading our brand new 2010 Reasons to Quit Facebook application. With it you can read about why others have decided to become tobacco free and you can also let the world know about your own reason for quitting. And while you're on Facebook, don't forget to become a fan of the Quit For Life Program! Building a community full of support is one of the most helpful steps in the process of quitting for life.

Best of luck to you in the New Year! And remember, we are here for you and ready to give you the support you need, when you need it.

Today’s environment makes it extremely easy to neglect physical activity, an essential element of maintaining good health, warding off chronic disease, and achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. Labor-saving technology, long commutes by car or bus, and hours spent on the computer for both work and play drain us of our energy and make it even harder to fit time in our busy schedules to get up and move.

In Free & Clear's latest Clear Insights Webinar, “Extreme Makeover: HR Edition: Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity in the Workplace,” Beth Shepard, clinical exercise physiologist, health educator, wellness coach, and strategic partner in the development of Free & Clear’s Mind & Body Program, shares best practices for revamping your worksite’s environment to reduce sedentary behavior and to encourage employees to take the initiative to become the healthiest they can be.

Through Clear Insights, Free & Clear educates and motivates employers, health plans and government agencies by sharing best practices for achieving sustainable health behavior change to reduce the risk of chronic disease.

Visit Clear Insights to register now for the free webinar,“Extreme Makeover: HR Edition: Strategies for Increasing Physical Activity in the Workplace,” held October 29, November 5, and November 19.

I’m excited to announce the signing of a definitive agreement that will make Free & Clear, Inc. a wholly owned subsidiary of Alere LLC. (Here's our Press Release.) We’ve told our customers, business partners and employees about the acquisition, and many people have let us know how much they respect Alere® and that the acquisition makes sense for both companies.

We're excited about the opportunities this ownership change presents for Free & Clear's long term growth and innovation, and we're also pleased to report that for the foreseeable future we'll continue to operate independently with no changes to our management team, employees and culture, or to our vigorous standards of quality in service delivery and customer care.

Alere and its parent, Inverness Medical, are both high performing companies that thrive on developing innovative technology and evidence-based solutions for enabling people to take charge of their health. It’s wonderful to become part of an organization that shares our vision for improving and saving lives.

In our modern environment, it's not hard to be stressed. Around the country, people are dealing with financial crises and job insecurity, which breed fear, uncertainty, and higher levels of stress, both in the home and the workplace. This can mean a severe drop in employee morale, health and productivity -- which puts your organization in its own financial crisis.

A recent Gallup Poll concluded that while 80% of workers admit that they are stressed in the workplace, 50% report they would like to receive education on how to better manage their stress. As an employer, you have the opportunity to provide the education and environment that will help your workforce improve the quality of their work -- and their lives.

In Free & Clear's latest Clear Insights webinar, "Extreme Makeover: HR Edition, Strategies for Reducing Employee Stress in the Workplace," Steve Tutty, PhD, and Rebecca Leone, Pilates Instructor, will show you practical strategies for improving your organization’s stress environment, so you can help your employees reduce their stress and be the healthiest they can be.

Through Clear Insights, Free & Clear educates and motivates employers, health plans and government agencies by sharing best practices for achieving sustainable health behavior change to reduce the risk of chronic disease.

Register now for the free webinar, "Extreme Makeover: HR Edition, Strategies for Reducing Employee Stress in the Workplace," held August 11 and September 29 at 11:00am-12:00pm PDT.

Last week, Free & Clear hosted its 3rd Annual Health & Fitness Week in conjunction with National Employee Health & Fitness Day on May 20th. Free & Clear’s wellness philosophy is to provide tools and resources to enable employees to make manageable health improvements. To align with our wellness philosophy and reinforce the methodology of our Mind & Body Program, Free & Clear expanded the National Employee Health & Fitness Day to a week-long event offering healthy events, educational workshops, and stress and relaxation activities. Free & Clear believes in the health and wellness of our employees and is always looking for new ways to encourage healthy behaviors. Our 3rd Annual Health & Fitness Week was another successful testament to Free & Clear’s dedication to healthy behavior change. Things included at this year’s fair were:

• Tasty, nutritious, all natural fruit smoothies
• “Exercise & the Brain” workshops that explained how physical activity and exercise can stimulate the brain
• Ergonomic training sessions focused on “Beating the Sedentary Blues” with helpful, easy-to-do workplace stretches
• Muscle relaxation massages to provide employees with a brief respite from the workday
• Casual 30-minute fitness walks through Pike Place Market and along the waterfront

We believe that Health & Fitness Week brings wellness front and center to the workplace and helps employees keep their personal goals present on their minds.

During the current recession, organizations are looking for cost savings wherever they can find them. There is particular pressure on employers’ benefits managers to try to reduce those ever increasing health care costs. There has never been a better time to contain cost increases by implementing a program like Free & Clear’s Quit For Life® Program.

Free & Clear happens to be in the right place at the right time. Our customer base and our sales continue to grow rapidly as organizations recognize what the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) has been saying for some time, that “there is no better investment in health care for employers than a comprehensive tobacco cessation program.” Both the CDC and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have cited Free & Clear as having a model cessation program.

Why has it taken so long for tobacco cessation to be recognized as an important benefit for companies to promote and provide? Until recently, some employers considered tobacco use to be a personal choice and not an issue for their concern as employers. This perception has been changing due to the large amount of media attention paid to tobacco issues and the growing awareness of not only the health risks but the economic costs to the employer. Still, less than half of all companies have any sort of a tobacco cessation program for their employees, and less than 10% invest in a comprehensive, evidence-based program like Quit For Life.

While tobacco use prevalence in the United States has declined significantly in the past few decades, there are still 45 million smokers who cost their employers an average excess cost of nearly $5,500 per year. Rather than just focusing on broad-based wellness programs for all employees, employers now realize that a evidence-based tobacco cessation program can have a great effect on the 20% of employees who create a disproportionate cost burden, both in terms medical costs and lost productivity.

Some employers prefer to contract for all of their wellness and healthy lifestyles programs from a single source like their health plan provider or EAP. Such organizations typically employ coaches who cover many topics like depression, stress, weight concerns, alcohol, tobacco, and a variety of health issues. They perform very useful coaching services but they are not tobacco cessation experts, and tobacco addiction is a very severe chronic condition.

To be effective in helping people to quit their tobacco addiction, employers need to rely on specialists like the Quit Coaches® available in the Quit For Life Program. Our many clients have acknowledged this expertise and have decided to carve out tobacco cessation from their other programs.

Most employees consume a significant portion of their daily nutrition away from home. This isn't surprising, considering the fact that employees spend the majority of time in their worksite environments. Unfortunately, employers don't often make things any easier on their workforce. Worksite environments are often minefields for people who are trying to make healthy decisions: vending machines are filled with sugary, salty snacks; cafeteria menus are full of high calorie items; employees celebrate with baked goods; meetings and events are catered by unregulated vendors.

In Free & Clear's latest Clear Insights webinar, "Extreme Makeover: HR Edition - How to Overhaul Your Worksite Food Environment to Support Employee Health," Sandi Kaplan, MS, RD will show employers how to do an organizational overhaul of their worksite food environment so they can help their workforces be the healthiest they can be.

Through Clear Insights, Free & Clear educates and motivates employers, health plans and government agencies by sharing best practices for achieving sustainable health behavior change to reduce the risk of chronic disease.

Register now for the free webinar, “Extreme Makeover: HR Edition - How to Overhaul Your Worksite Food Environment to Support Employee Health,” held May 19, June 2 and June 9, 11:00am-12:00pm PDT.

The recent tax increase on tobacco products is causing many people to scramble for their phones in a rush to seek help in quitting.  According to USA Today, there has been a tidal wave of calls flooding tobacco quit lines since Wednesday, April 1st, the day the increase took effect.  Free & Clear’s 17 state quit lines alone were up 369% from the same day in 2008.  This poses the question: How can a hotline help me quit?

Well, we are not just a hotline. We will not just give you some information, slap a patch on you and send you on your way. We are staffed with highly skilled and well-trained tobacco treatment specialists who understand that quitting takes mental, emotional and physical preparation. Our Quit Coaches are here to help you quit and stay quit by helping you create a personalized plan that fits your lifestyle.

People want to quit for many reasons (recent tax increase included) and we know how important it is to have a solid plan when fighting tobacco addiction.  Once we have a better idea about what your needs are, we can help you make a plan to overcome the potential barriers to your success: the behaviors, emotions and physical cravings that seem to beat people down in their attempts to quit.

When you are ready, give us a call; we are here for you.  No pressure, no assembly line routine…Just an open ear, the desire to help you reach your goals…and to help you save some cash, too!