Employees stressed? Massage may be the answer

The fax machine broke down, the computer keeps sending you "error" messages, and your administrative assistant just called in to say that she broke her ankle and won't be back at work for three days. Well, as much as you may want to, right now is not the time to slip on home and get "taken away" by a long, leisurely bath. Do not lose heart, though, because there may be a better way to ease the stress.

How does a 20- or 30-minute massage sound? "Yeah, yeah," you say, "I'm just going to strip down here in my office and have some masseuse come in and work me over in front of all the other employees. Sounds like fun."

That's the old image of massage. Today's massage therapists are making it convenient and worthwhile for employers to offer massages for the company's employees.

"Massage has many benefits for both the employee and the employer" says Mindy Lederman, co-founder of TimeOut On-Site Massage in Menlo Park, California. "We see our role as being a key parruer in the new era of performance management because we understand that job stress is probably the leading cause of lost productivity and, therefore, profits in companies. Some of the benefits of massage are that it reduces stress and alleviates fatigue, it enhances the ability to think and concentrate, and it also increases energy and relaxed awareness. These are all benefits that help employees be more productive"

You don't have to be a large company or spend oodles of money offering this benefit to your employees. Johnson & Dugan Insurance Services Corporation, a financial services company with over 300 clients in San Bruno, Californa, has only 37 employees, and their employees enjoy the massages so much that they said they would pay the whole price to keep it going.

"They said they wanted this benefit so much that they would be willing to pay for it, but we split the cost with them" explains Kathleen Dugan, COO of the company, "because we know it benefits us, too. The day the masseuse comes in, we have a tremendous sense of'aaahhh' throughout the conapany: lots of smies and people more relaxed"

The idea for having on-site massages came from the company "Team Brainstorm" committee, who found the massage company and brought it in to give free massages to the entire staff.

"We got so many responses from employees saying, 'I would be the happiest person in the world if you continued this every month' we decided it was well worth it. What we found was that it was especially important to those of our employees who had children, because they could'nt take the time off during their days to do it themselves. It is a very stressful life when you have kids and a job, because you have everything hitting you at one time."

The company negotiated the price with TimeOut and agreed to pay a $26 charge for a 20 minute, full-back massage, done with employees fully clothed the entire time. Most massage companies offer chair massages, but Johnson & Dugan employees opted to have table massages so they could have more extensive work done on tileir backs.

The company brings in the masseuse once a month and only has slots for nine or 10 people, so everyone signs up as early as possible "Because our employees are often working outside the office," explains Dugan, "we give them a month's notice, giving them time to sign up and rearrange their schedules if necessary so they can be in the office that day."

Dugan and her employees have found the massages so helpful that they are recommending them to their own clients. "We are always looking for ways to make employees days a little bit better, and we thought this was one of those things that would make a good employee benefit."