Want help to quit smoking, go green or spend more quality time with your family? Work at Wal-mart.

From today's NYT: A New Program to Offer White-Collar Perks To Chain's Workers: In the last year, Wal-Mart has quietly introduced an ambitious program in the United States -- in equal parts self-help class, corporate retreat and tent revival -- that tries to turn its 1.3 million workers into a model for its 200 million customers on issues ranging from personal health to the environment.

The program, to be announced today, tests the assumption, if not conventional wisdom, that environmentalism and fitness are luxuries of the well-off, inaccessible to a vast number of the nation's working class because of hectic schedules, stretched budgets and bad habits.

At the same time, it thrusts Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, far deeper into workers' personal lives than the company -- and perhaps any retailer -- has ever reached before.

In extensive workshops held nationwide, the company is teaching its employees the benefits of carpooling to work with three colleagues (for a savings of $400 a year on gas), quitting cigarette smoking ($1,500 a year) and turning off a television ($40 a year in electricity, plus more time to spend with family).

The program, called the personal sustainability project, is voluntary, but it is proving popular, with roughly 50 percent of employees in a dozen states signing up so far...Read the whole article HERE