As a longtime believer in the benefits of massage to overall health, I was intrigued to read about SHRM Exhibitor, Massage at Work. Particularly interesting to me was the correlation drawn between massage and the reduction of absenteeism and stress levels at work.
While I’m lucky enough to be able to fit massage within my budget, the concept of bringing massage into the workplace as an employee benefit resonated with me.
Given my interest, interviewing Leo Ranieri, the President of Massage at Work, was a natural fit for my first #SHRM17 blog.
I started by asking Leo to "tell me a little bit about your background and how it led to your decision to start Massage at Work?"
Here’s what Leo had to say:
I saw first-hand how strongly employee appreciation relates to successful corporate cultures and heightened profitability. I found that the more appreciated employees felt, the less stressed, the more creative and productive they were. It made perfect sense.
I kept thinking about it and searched for a single wellness solution that could address the sometimes divergent needs of employees and companies. After studying the field, I focused on the physical and mental/emotional health benefits of massage, received certification as a Licensed Massage Therapist in New Jersey, New York and nationally and, while practicing, launched Massage At Work, LLC, in 2005.
I feel that my corporate human resources background affords me a rare perspective among providers of corporate chair massage, enabling me to anticipate requirements of organizations of all sizes and partner effectively with executives at all levels.
I feel very blessed to have found a vocation that allows me to do so much to help so many.
I then turned to some particular questions I had about Massages at Work. Leo’s answers are quite informative. Here are Leo’s answers to my questions:
1. What’s your favorite story about a client’s employee whose life was changed by the massage treatments provided by one of your therapists?
I returned to a client’s office after a year and one of their employees told me they are no longer living in pain since I massaged her last year. She was so grateful and I was so amazed to have helped.
2. When you talk to potential clients, what is the most difficult hurdle to jump over to close the deal?
Historically, the issue was that massage in the workplace was seen as a luxury benefit, a warm and fuzzy feel-good frill. But, now that multiple studies have proven massage reduces stress, which companies have come to understand is very destructive both to employee health and their bottom lines, that's not so much an issue. (Massage is now a well-accepted treatment for disorders that drain corporate profitability, such as back and neck pain and repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel syndrome. It's proven to reduce stress, which boosts immunity, to lessen fatigue and anxiety and to promote employee engagement. Plus, it releases the same kind of feel-good endorphins as an intense work-out – without the work.)
3. Has the advent of wellness programs made a difference in how difficult it is to convince potential clients to sign up?
Now that more companies have seen the bottom line benefits of wellness programs, there's less difficulty convincing potential clients to include massage. Once they hear about the low cost of our in-office chair massage programs and understand that on site massage can inspire employees to participate in other healthy lifestyle initiatives, it isn't such a tough sell.
4. Massage at Work provides custom-tailored chair massage programs. Does that mean that if employees have, for example, a sore leg, they cannot get therapy?
It would depend on what was wrong with their leg and whether the therapist thought that it was something that could be helped with massage. The chairs that are used are designed to allow the therapist to work most on the neck, shoulders and back, but they can also reach someone's leg if, say, it was sore from a work-out the day before.
5. How do your therapists handle situations when they determine that an employee’s condition is something that needs medical treatment?
That's a great question. All the therapists we work with are licensed massage professionals with current insurance and licenses. They are trained to be able to discern when a sore leg may indicate a blood clot, rather than simply an overworked muscle from a day-before work-out. In that case, they would definitely refer the person to a physician rather than massaging him or her.
If all of this has not peeked your interest to visit the Massage at Work (Booth #2738) in the #SHRM17 Exhibition Hall, the fact that Leo is bringing two massage therapists with him to the conference should give you some added incentive to meet Leo and his team.
Allan H. Weitzman is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Court Mediator and Florida Bar Board Certified Labor and Employment Attorney – a combination of specialized certifications that are held by very few others. He is the Founder of Weitzman Arbitration & Mediation Services LLC.
Allan retired from the practice of law on October 31, 2017. Prior to his retirement, all of those 44+ years were at the Proskauer law firm, where Allan was first a summer associate, then an associate and ultimately a partner in Proskauer’ s Labor & Employment Law Department, where he also served as head of the labor and employment team in Proskauer’ s Boca Raton office for 23 years after his 21 years in Proskauer’ s New York Office. He also was co-head of the Disability, Accommodations & Leave Management Group, co-head of the Policies, Handbooks & Training Group and co-head of the Non-Compete and Trade Secrets Practice Group.
During his career, Allan’s practice was multifaceted. Much of the time he was either litigating in state or federal court at the trial and appellate levels. He also appeared before administrative agencies responsible for the enforcement of the numerous antidiscrimination laws and before the National Labor Relations Board. His experience includes negotiating collective bargaining agreements and arbitrating contract disputes. In addition, Allan provided valuable day-to-day and crisis advice to clients in a wide range of businesses and industries, including retailers, banks, office supply companies, insurance, securities, health care, investigators, lodging and gaming, restaurants, television networks, high end fashion design, maritime, charitable organizations, public utilities, sports and entertainment, beer distributors, not-for-profits, importers, manufacturing facilities, staffing companies, construction, aerospace, transportation, higher education, museums, technology, country clubs and airlines. On any given day, the scope of his practice included personnel policy planning, sexual harassment and avoiding litigation when terminating employees.
Corporations also called upon Allan when their former employees engaged in conduct that violated their non-compete agreements. In that regard, Allan took a case all the way to the Supreme Court of Florida and successfully argued that a successor employer can enforce a non-compete agreement signed with a former employer, even when the agreement does not contain a successors and assigns clause and where the employees have not consented to its assignment (Corporate Express Office Products, Inc. v. Phillips, 2003 WL 1883697 (Fla. April 17, 2003)).
On behalf of the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), Allan and his partner, Paul Salvatore, submitted the amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Faragher v. City of Boca Raton. The employer's “affirmative defense” that was adopted by the Supreme Court in Faragher was based on the argument made by Allan and Paul that employees who bypass an employer's internal complaint procedure should not benefit from a strict liability standard. Allan also co-authored SHRM's amicus brief in Chapman v. AI Transport, in which he successfully argued that an employer's subjective impressions could be used as valid criteria in its employment decisions. In 2004, Allan co-authored another Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of SHRM. This time his arguments in the Suders case persuaded the Court to conclude that a constructive discharge was not necessarily a tangible employment action that would deprive an employer of the availability of the Faragher affirmative defense.
Allan was named three times by Best Lawyers as “Lawyer of the Year” in Labor Law - Management, Fort Lauderdale (2017), Employment Law - Management, Fort Lauderdale (2016) and Employment Law - Management, Miami (2013).
Allan has earned a first tier Chambers ranking for his outstanding employment law work every year since 2007, naming him “first-class” and a “notable practitioner” who is an “excellent advocate with strong ethics and an unrivalled understanding of business.” He was also described as “amazingly bright” and held out as “bringing the best of both worlds: legal acumen and superb business judgments.” “He gets to the point in the most efficient and effective manner – he has the highest professional standards.”
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