Ellen Quigley is the Vice President of Programs at the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation An Interview with Mike Thibideau, Director, Indiana Workforce Recovery Initiative Background In February 2018, the Indiana Chamber of Commerce and the Wellness Council of Indiana announced the Indiana Workforce Recovery Initiative, a strategic partnership with Governor Eric Holcomb and his administration to combat the opioid epidemic. The initiative’s mission is to empower the business community by educating and guiding employers through the steps they can take to help their workers struggling with substance use disorder. The objectives of the initiative are to: Identify, evaluate and disseminate best practices in the workplace that support substance use prevention, […]

Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. Public policies like higher cigarette taxes and expanded access to evidence-based cessation treatment can help lower smoking rates in Indianapolis and across the state. But employers looking to help their employees quit and improve their health today have a number of tools already available, beyond these longer-term policy efforts. Take the experience of two Fortune 500 companies who used incentives to help employees quit. In 2004, General Electric launched a program that offered employees up to $750 if they quit smoking for 12 months. To test the impact, GE randomly offered the incentive to some […]