Last week our engineers participated in the GE HealthAhead Day, organized by EDC initiative – GE HealthAhead. The event took place at our site and lasted 4 hours. During that time around 500 employees could have tried any of 20 attractions connected with eating healthier, being more active and improving their overall health.

“What we wanted to achieve was to encourage everyone to take care of themselves. During the event we organized first aid trainings, some sports contests, back massages, yoga and mindfulness trainings. Each employee could have also checked his or her blood pressure, eyesight and cholesterol or glucose level. We also provided the mobile bicycle service and a place where all employees could have checked their car fire extinguishers.” – says Jarosław Mysza, Advanced Technology Section Manager and the GE HealthAhead leader.

After the event we talked with people, for whom the HA Day was a gamechanger. A small first step to change something in their lives – begin training, change eating habits, start treatment of a chronic disease… One of our employees did the basic preventive diagnosis test from her blood and with big surprise realized that her results are not very good. Another person took part in the ski ergometer challenge and found out that his condition is much worse than he thought. The first person went to a doctor, second promised to start regular exercises.

That sounds weird, but sometimes this one talk with a professional is “the last straw that breaks the camel’s back” and people really change something after HealthAhead Day. That’s why we are organizing this event each year. The tradition must be cultivated as one of the EDC’s objectives is to encourage employees to lead a healthy lifestyle. HealthAhead Day is a great chance for it.