Army Announces Well-Being Lab Sites

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, March 20, 2002) -- The Army has announced Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md.; Fort Bragg, N.C.; Fort Jackson, S.C.; 2nd Infantry Division, Korea; and the 26th Area Support Group, Germany; as sites for Well-Being Labs, beginning in June.

Brig. Gen. Jim Coggin, director of Human Resources Policy, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-1, briefed the initiative to garrison commanders attending a conference March 19 in Nashville, Tenn.

Click here to view the chart: ( .gif )( .ppt )

According to the implementing memorandum, the labs will:

• Research, develop and implement a laboratory program designed to maximize the well-being of Soldiers, civilians and Families through actions taken at installation/community level.
• Identify community member perceptions of Well-Being products and services.
• Analyze laboratory results and recommend actions for Army-wide implementation.

"About the best way I can describe Well-Being Labs is that they will demonstrate the best-business practices of Well-Being -- sharing what works and what does not," Coggin said. "They are being put into place to determine what the Well-Being philosophy looks like in execution. We are doing something here that hasn't been done before -- there are no templates."

The Army's definition of Well-Being is the personal -- physical, material, mental and spiritual -- state of Soldiers, (Department of the Army) civilians, veterans, retirees and their Families that contributes to their preparedness to perform and support the Army mission.

The primary difference between what was once called Quality of Life and Well-Being is that Well-Being seeks to integrate the mutually supporting demands and expectations of the Army and its people, said Lt. Col. John Wood, Well-Being Division chief, G-1.

"In the past, commanders had to gather information from stovepipe systems," Wood said. "He would have to ask the housing chief for a snapshot of his area, the hospital commander for the medical picture, his finance officer for pay issues and so on. Ideally, Well-Being will integrate those systems by having someone responsible for looking across those systems and evaluating them in a holistic manner with the results tied to readiness."

Wood's division has been working the Headquarters, Department of the Army, piece of Well-Being for more than a year. It has tied the Well-Being live, connect and grow model to 48 specific Army Well-Being functions.

Well-Being categories include:

• To live: pay and compensation, health care, housing, continuous learning and command programs;
• To connect: fitness and health promotions, workplace environment, Family member education and Family programs;
• To grow: religious programs, investment, educational assistance, Family member employment, and Morale, Welfare and Recreation.

"Our challenge is to show how investing in Well-Being really scores by articulating it back to readiness," Wood said.

For the individual, Well-Being provides predictability and standardization with programs and benefits across the Army.

"We recognize the Army has great programs, but sometimes the programs are not integrated with other functions and with the Army's goals and objectives to maximize the benefits for the Soldier, retiree or Family member," Wood said.

Describing himself as a "Well-Being evangelist," Coggin said the expectations of today's younger Soldiers about the Army are vastly different than his generation.

"I come from the Baby-Boomer Generation where the norm is giving complete loyalty to the institution while making few demands on it," Coggin said. "Generational studies show that Generation X'ers have greater expectations of the organization they work for."

Coggin listed some of those expectations: fair pay and compensation; good healthcare; reasonable opportunities for continuing education; time and access to recreation; reasonable time to spend with Family; knowing their Family will be cared for if they are called away for duty; access to communications to Family when away; knowing their own needs will be taken care of when away; a maintained workplace; and workload predictability.

The consequences of not making reasonable efforts to meet those expectations may have consequences that directly impact readiness, Coggin said. In the future, the Army could be challenged to attract the number and quality of recruits it needs, and it may be more difficult to retain the people it needs, he explained.

In addition to the Well-Being Labs, the general touched on a number of Well-Being initiatives implemented in the last year:

• TRICARE for Life, which provides permanent healthcare benefits to Medicare-eligible uniformed services retirees, Family members and survivors who have attained the age of 65.
• High school stabilization, allows Soldiers to stabilize in their current duty location for one year if they have a child who will graduate from high school during that year.
• Thrift Savings Plan, a federal Government-sponsored retirement savings and investment plan for Department of the Army civilians and now a benefit for military service members.
• Spouse Orientation and Leader Development conference, a meeting of active-duty, Reserve and Guard spouses to map out strategy to help Army spouses be more self-sufficient when Soldier is deployed.

"A good Army completes its mission," Coggin said. "A good Army takes care of its people. But a great Army does both. We have a great Army now and it will continue as a great Army while transforming to the Objective Force."

Source: March 20th, 2002 Army Link News Article