Wellness Program Blog

The costs of medical care have been rising more than 10 percent each year for several years. A substantial amount of the money spent in the medical care system treats costly illnesses and diseases.

• Approximately 95 percent of the $1.4 trillion that we spend as a nation on health goes to direct medical care services, while about 5 percent is allocated to preventing disease and promoting health.
• Potentially, 50 percent to 70 percent of all diseases are avoidable as they are associated with modifiable health risks.
• In an effort to optimize employee health, decrease avoidable medical care utilization and enhance work achievement, and in turn decreased medical care costs and better employee satisfaction and retention, many employers are creating, or are interested in creating, Company Wellness Programs for workers.

The advantages of workplace wellness are well documented. Greater than 120 research studies repeatedly show themes such as improvements in health outcomes coupled with high returns on investment (ROI). Some primary findings include the following:

• Savings of $3.48 in reduced medical care costs per dollar invested.
• Savings of $5.82 in decrease absenteeism costs per dollar invested.
• ROIs of at least $3 to $8 per dollar invested within five years of program implementation.
• Lifestyle behavior modification programs: $3 to $6 ROI within 2 to 5 years.
• Self care, decision support programs: $2 to $3 ROI within a year.
• Disease management programs: $7 to $10 ROI within a year.

By offering health improvement programs, employers are not only offering an additional service for workers, but they are also gaining monetarily. Furthermore, the impact of a health improvement program goes beyond decreased medical care cost and ROI. A health improvement program can affect productivity, absenteeism, morale, recruitment success, turnover, and medical care costs.

• Source: Rees, C., and Finch, R. (2004). Health Improvement: A comprehensive guide to designing, launching and evaluating workplace programs. National Business Group on Health, 1 (1), 1-7.

According to the American Journal of Health Promotion, “Health promotion is the science and art of helping people modify their lifestyle to move toward a state of ideal health. Optimal health is defined as a balance of physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual health. Lifestyle modification can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, modify behavior, and set up environments that support great health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest impact in producing lasting change.”

Company Wellness : Action Steps

The process of assembling a Company Wellness involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your workers
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and launching the programs
• Building in motivational incentives/rewards
• Measuring the impact
• Revising programs based on assessment outcomes

It may even include creating policies and procedures that support employee participation in wellness activities at your workplace (such as flextime).

Steps to Starting a Company Wellness

• Conduct an company assessment
• Obtain management support
• Establish a Company Wellness  Committee
• Obtain employee input
• Establish objectives
• Design and implement program activities
• Identify incentives/rewards
• Assess outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to better the nation’s health is through all-inclusive Company Wellness Programs. According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, these programs may help workers live healthier lifestyles by creating supportive work environments and offering awareness, education and behavior modification programs. In fact, one of the objectives of Healthy People 2010, a set of health objectives for the nation to achieve by the year 2010, is to improve the proportion of workers that take part in a all-inclusive Company Wellness at their workplace to 75 percent.

5 Ways to Assess and Improve Your workers’ Health

Emotional health is a state of wellness that comes from understanding and acknowledging our emotions and finding appropriate ways to express them. As workers, we often bring emotional problems from our childhood or current family life into the workplace because we haven’t dealt with them effectively outside of work. This can seriously damage workplace relationships and lead to poor achievement and detrimental feelings all around.

Many tools and techniques exist for helping us better our emotional health. Some of the most common are given below, with real-life case histories illustrating their use. If an unpleasant mood or feeling persists over a length of time, do not hesitate to seek out a qualified professional. Company Wellness Programs usually have professional support already in place as part of their services.

1. Wellness Coaching / Wellness Counseling:
One of the hallmarks of emotional health is the willingness to ask for help when we need it. Confidential professional help, the coaching and counseling provided by employee assistance or wellness programs, can offer an external source of strength and insight for “working out” emotionally-based problems instead of “working them in” to your work.

2. Self-help Groups:
Self-help groups are designed to aid people in emotional situations in which they feel alone. The purpose of these groups is twofold: to allow people to safely feel and express their emotions, and to help break their isolation at work and/or in society at large and reintegrate them into society with the support of a peer group.

The classic self-help group is Alcoholics Anonymous, but thanks to technology, it’s possible to make connections with others that have common health challenges, no matter how unique the situation. People are taking advantage of tele-conference groups and social websites, such as sparkpeople.com and revolutionhealth.com. Company Wellness Programs often have such groups available through web-based or phone support. Progressive corporate wellness provider Exan Wellness, for example, offers teleconference cell groups and moderated wellness forums for interacting with others in a supportive, confidential and anonymous environment. People with shared challenges get together and discuss the emotional challenges they are facing at work or in other areas of their lives and work through modification together.

3. Journaling: Journaling is often recommended by counsellors as a way to help identify and process emotions. People record their emotions in writing as they experience them, in whatever form they wish. By helping the writer gain greater emotional clarity, journaling can help in making more emotionally informed decisions. In much the same way, letter writing enables people to identify and process the emotions they feel in relation to others. The letter does not have to be be sent or its contents shared: it simply supports a place for the expression of feelings.

An 18-year-old “army brat,” Brent has always done well at school, academically and athletically. But in his last year of high school, something seems to have happened to him. He has lost all interest in school, becoming moody and withdrawn.

Brent describes to his guidance counselor all the times he had to move when he was growing up. Each move wrenched him from his friends and forced him to play the role of the “new kid on the block.” The counselor suggests that Brent write letters to the friends he has missed over the years telling them how he felt. Finally, he has a chance to say a proper goodbye.

4. Assess Your Emotional Wellness: Companies that seek to boost employees’ interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence in the workplace are more , according to ground-breaking journalist Daniel Goleman. And emotional intelligence is the buzzword in workplaces these days. Some Company Wellness Programs have information about emotional intelligence, or emotional health assessments. Seek out more information about emotional intelligence for better corporate wellness.

5. Friendships/Support Systems: Friendships allow people to feel supported in their emotional journeys. At the same time, they give people an opportunity to advance their empathetic skills. These skills are also valuable for workplace health. When we are empathic with fellow workers, we help them resolve detrimental or unhealthy emotions. New friendships are made through hobbies, classes, clubs, or even through web-based groups. Many people are finding emotional satisfaction by establishing relationships through Facebook and other social websites.

Occasionally workplace stress that is not dealt with in a healthy manner can be brought home. A 36-year-old mother of three, Sarah, wants to be a great wife, a great mother, and a success at her work. One day, drained after a long day at work, she shouted at her rambunctious children and threatened to hit her youngest son. Her behavior horrified her. To make matters worse, she believes she is a failure at her work as well as at motherhood. She watches with jealousy as younger co-workers advance much more rapidly up the corporate ladder despite having less experience than she has.

On the advice of a counselor, she decides to take time out for herself and take a course for amateur painters. It doesn’t take long before she strikes up a friendship with a single mom in the class. She once led a life very similar to Sarah’s before managing to achieve a better balance between work and family. Her new friend becomes a much-required sounding board for Sarah and offers her perspectives on her life that she hadn’t considered before.

25% Jump in Employer Interest in Employee Health and Wellness

Worksite wellness for their workers, employers are discovering, is great for the health of their employers as well. Company Wellness Programs help to cut the costs associated with poor employee health, which include absenteeism, loss of productivity and poor work quality.

A current Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 United States employers indicated a valuable paradigm shift in how employers view health benefits for their workers. Of those surveyed this year, 88% are committed to instituting long-term medical care assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their workers, with the objective of boosting the health and productivity of their workforce. This represents a 25% growth in interest in Company Wellness Programs over 2007.

A strong offering of Company Wellness Programs to meet the demand has resulted. Health assistance providers have broadened their programs with tools that address general lifestyle factors, physical, social and psychological health factors. Programs look to predict chronic conditions in their workers and give them the tools and the information to prevent it. Companies also demand a way to measure the effectiveness of their medical care spending.

“Self-care is our motive,” says Vic Lebouthillier, president of progressive health and wellness provider Exan Wellness.”We really believe giving workers tools to help them manage their own health, and promoting the advantages, while giving people resources to reach out for help is the key to efficacious lifestyle modification. Corporations are also telling us they need a cost-effective way to deliver Company Wellness Programs. The sort of program we have developed over years delivers the highest medical care return on investment.”

Combining workplace wellness promotions, web-based assessments and health trackers, web-based health information, phone conferences and self-help groups, and access to a wide variety of health professionals, is behind the success of the Exan program. “Having web-based statistics about workers’ health also makes it easier to track the bottom line – ROI” says Vic Lebouthillier.

“Companies are moving beyond their traditional role as a provider of medical care benefits to advance holistic programs that pinpoint the specific health needs of their employee populations, drive employee behavior modification and eliminate barriers to healthcare,” says Jim Winkler, leader of Hewitt’s health management consulting practice.

However, in a separate survey of 30,000 workers, 74% said that, although they felt their company had an obligation to help them be aware of how to use their health benefits program, only 12% felt the company had any right to tell them how to be healthy. Based on these results, employers need to drive home the fact that improved health is better for their workers as well as the company. It’s a win-win situation.

Employers and workers did discover common ground when it came to future medical care. Both surveys indicate that 95% of workers be aware of that their taking care of their health today will impact future medical care payments. A similar percentage also be aware of the valuable of early detection and prevention when it comes to saving on medical care costs.

Cost is valuable for most employers as well. Over 80% of those surveyed made cost mitigation a priority for 2008, but those reductions did not involve shifting responsibility for medical care onto workers. Although 64% of employers have transfered costs to their workers, only 17% aim  to do so in the next 3-5 years. Similarly with health reimbursement accounts, 20% now offer these, but only about 5% aim  to use them in 2008.

These survey results indicate employers are getting more proactive in helping their workers to shift behaviors and take ownership of their own health futures. This is obviously great for the wellness of workers, but also for the wellness of the employers they work for. Almost half the employers surveyed were convinced that changing health behaviors was key to improved productivity and decrease absentee rates. Over 60% aim  to institute programs that help workers modify and/or sustain a healthier lifestyle. Almost of these employers will also use data and measurements to be sure their medical care strategies meet their medical care objectives?

It is apparent to virtually every American (especially those of us in business) that medical care costs are skyrocketing out of control. No one doubts that either the market will solve the concern OR the government will impose one on us. Managed care has failed from either a cost containment or quality of care perspective. Companies have reached the point where the cost of offering health care insurance is almost as burdensome as government regulation. It’s time for some new thinking on medical care and its impact on business and vice versa. “Corporate wellness” as an operational perspective instead of merely window dressing is one way to deal effectively with rising medical care costs.

The Insurance Issue

The first step in solving the concern is to realize that an employee’s health is their own responsibility. Expecting employers to offer unlimited health care insurance coverage is simply unrealistic and unreasonable. It’s time for employers (on a broad scale) to reconsider their role in offering health care insurance coverage. Instead of offering complete coverage for all workers through group plans, employers ought to begin to modify the burden of health coverage to those covered.

Here’s the approach. Provide catastrophic health care insurance as a group benefit to all workers with a big enough deductible (say $5000 per employee) to make the cost affordable for the company. Then, allow workers to buy their own health care insurance policies (based on their own needs) and pay for them through payroll deduction with pre-tax earnings. There are numerous insurance employers that sell individual plans on this basis. Everybody wins. Workers can tailor their coverage to their own needs and circumstances using their own doctors. Companies win by stopping the endless cycle of rising costs and ever-changing plans. And when people become responsible for the cost of their own insurance, they become more attentive to their own health. Besides, if an employee is interested in working for you ONLY because your company offers great insurance benefits aren’t they telling you they’re going to cost you more money in the future?

Establish a “Wellness Culture”

Our current “sickness culture” perpetuates the medical care crisis and hastens the demise of market-based solutions. By sickness culture, I mean our focus on health problems instead of on having a healthy workplace and performance culture.

So, what would a “wellness culture” look like? First, instead of paid sick days, workers might be rewarded at year’s end with an attendance bonus. Workers would be reimbursed for efficacious completion of smoking cessation and weight-loss programs. Companies would invest in corporate memberships at local health clubs so every employee can take part. Workers would be provided in-house wellness programs on a variety of problems ranging from ergonomics to stress management. Finally, employers would commit to hiring and retaining healthy workers. Simply put, healthy workers cost less and are more productive than unhealthy ones. Applicants ought to be screened for health habits and practices that limit their productivity and improve the likelihood of future expense. While this may seem harsh, it rewards those workers whose personal lifestyle and habits be sure the best Return on Investment by the company committing to hire, train and pay them.

Be open to “alternative and complementary” approaches

Studies published in primary medical care journals reveal that people who use “alternative and complementary” health modalities (including chiropractic, acupuncture, yoga and massage) are generally healthier, better educated, take fewer medications and miss fewer days from work than the average American. Since these people look for ways to stay healthy without drugs and surgery, they end up being a net benefit in terms of attendance and productivity. Old prejudices in this area ought to be discarded in order for employers to better productivity and improve profitability

Conclusion

Health Care costs are growing at a staggering pace. Managed care is an abysmal failure. Companies are buckling under the pressure of offering health coverage to their workers. American competitiveness in the market is sagging. These times call for extraordinary solutions. It’s time for American employers to consider some out-of-the-box solutions to the medical care crisis. Business wellness is an approach that is timely, achievable and reasonable given the alternatives. All options ought to be considered while we still have a chance.

Research spanning more than a decade has consistently determined Company Wellness Programs to be monetarily effective and that every dollar invested on a corporate wellness program can return $2.30 and $10.10 by reducing absenteeism, sick day usage and by lowering insurance costs. Additionally it is noted that there are marked improvements in employee effectiveness and productivity in employers that implement a Company Wellness .

Healthy employers enjoy improved employee morale and an improved ability to attract and retain key people. Additionally, workers are more alert and productive. For instance, Coca Cola reports that they save an estimated $500 a year per employee once they implemented a physical activity program in which 60% of their workers take part. Coors Brewing Business stated that workers who participated in their Company Wellness Programs reduced their absentee rate by 18%.

workers enjoy their share of advantages from Company Wellness Programs too. A healthy lifestyle affects every part of a person’s life, including their work environment. Company Wellness Programs result in fewer injuries, less human error and a work environment that is more harmonious and relaxed. Additionally, workers who work at a company that implements a Company Wellness  know that their company is concerned about their wellness and health. Workers often report a decline in their stress levels due to Company Wellness Programs.

As workers feel better, more relaxed, more valued and more human to their company; they enjoy a growth in productivity. This growth in productivity, while productive to the company, is also important to the employee as it increases their own sense of self worth and confidence levels. Workers who feel efficacious and who feel that they accomplish objectives are central happier and in a better frame of mind.

The advantages of Company Wellness Programs, both tangible and intangible, are evident. It is a wise move for a company to implement a Company Wellness , particularly when they incorporate some form of mental health aspect into it. This also has social advantages as domestic violence and child abuse is determined to be decreased in areas where wellness programs are implemented. These days, a company can almost not afford to have some sort of wellness program to offer to their workers.

Some of the top wellness programs currently in use today include:

Health Risk Assessments or HRAs

Health Risk Assessment is a top corporate wellness program currently in use globally. Companies that implement it determine the safety and health problems of workers by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the workers.

It can, for example, guide the company into determining how the air quality within an office room affects the users and then help the assessment group to come up with the measures essential to correct the concern. An HRA can also evaluate the level of exposure workers have to certain hazardous or dangerous materials and practices.

Immunizations

This isn’t always practiced in every country since there are regions where government sponsored immunization shots are available. However, it has also become an valuable component of the top Company Wellness Programs in countless employers in North America.

Immunization shots, such as those used to combat flu, for example, are provided to workers for no cost.

Employee Assistance Program(EAP)

Employee Assistance Program(EAP)s consist of a wide variety of services. It can range from offering educational resources to workers regarding health problems to sponsoring health services and medical care. In countless employers, medical and insurance have also become a staple part of their benefits system.

In-house nutrition and diet drives

This is another wellness program that employers use, particularly those that offer in-house commissary or cafeteria services. Instead of serving richer, high-calorie fare, cafeterias offer options for a healthier diet, usually in the form of low-calorie foods and sugar substitutes.

In-house employee wellness newsletter and campaign drives

One of the top wellness programs that employers can implement is a self-powered tool using a newsletter to encourage wellness, coupled with a visible campaign. The campaign may be done periodically and focus on a specific topic, such as smoking hazards, cancer, stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, safety in the workplace, etc.

The employee wellness newsletter in itself can be an effective means to deliver information to workers or members of a company but it is far from perfect. Some workers, for example, may not read the newsletter entirely or even pay attention to it. If the problems outlined in the newsletter are promoted through an active and highly visible campaign, it will be easier to maximize positive results.

Exercise and physical activity drives

Another top wellness program for employers is one that involves physical activities. Companies often sponsor exercise-related activities such as marathons and company sports programs to bolster workers to remain fit or lose excess weight. In mid- to large-sized employers, employers may even pay for fitness center memberships or in-house exercise facilities.

Rewards and Incentives

Some of the top wellness programs implemented by employers involve Rewards and Incentives. This involves company-sponsored programs that reward workers for achieving specific wellness-related objectives. Participation in health campaigns and signing up for wellness programs are two of the most usually rewarded schemes. Rewards can range from special recognitions to over time acquired points (for bigger rewards) to specific gifts. In a few cases, cash may also be used.

However, incentive systems have had mixed reactions and levels of success. But it continues to be one of the top choices among employers who are willing to modify it in order to fit their unique needs.

Peer Pressure

In countless employers, employers take advantage of peer pressure in order to bolster workers to take part in wellness programs. This is currently one of the favorite Company Wellness Programs currently in use today and growing in popularity. Peer pressure is often leveraged to help encourage competitions referring to workplace wellness and to persuade workers to be active in company-sponsored wellness fairs.

Wellness is a great concept. It brings happiness into health and encourages a truly holistic approach to life. Wikipedia defines wellness as a healthy balance of the mind-body and spirit that results in an central feeling of wellness. It sounds like exactly what every one is looking for. But when you begin to talk about corporate wellness, or workplace wellness, all life goes out of the concept. Total solutions, disease management and health evaluation do not inspire visions of enjoying life and living it to the full. They begin from the assumption that sickness is here to stay and needs to be discovered, managed and controlled but can never be healed.

The wellness industry is growing phenomenally fast. Wellness guru, Paul Zane Pilzer, has labeled it the next trillion dollar industry. But wellness has two different faces. On the one hand there are the small employers – people working from home or in small centers selling all kinds of wellness products and services at a speed of growth that is escalating rapidly. On the other hand corporate wellness is also exploding but in a very different direction.

The baby boomers who are driving the popular wellness revolution have been described as the first generation to refuse to accept the inevitability of death. They are actively looking for ways to prevent aging, stay healthy into old age and enjoy themselves more than ever before after retirement. This is a radical departure from current notions of old age, which are often dominated by pictures of sickness, frailty and suffering.

The employers have been largely forced to take on wellness. This is partly through legislative pressure, with countless countries introducing laws to make employers liable for stress-related sickness in their workers. It is also monetarily motivated, as research has repeatedly determined the enormous costs of absenteeism (and increasingly of presenteeism as well).

Whereas the baby boomers are actively looking for new solutions and new lifestyles the employers are struggling to organize largely traditional and mainstream health systems, such as doctors, nurses, insurance and screening systems. The concern is that the traditional health system does not have solutions for the problems that people are handling.

Nobody ever went to see a doctor to get happy, because a doctor doesn’t have any clue how to make people happy. And countless stress-related health problems are described as chronic diseases, which means that they last for a very long time – or maybe for the rest of your life – because there is no medical cure. Counseling is a common offering in employers for emotional problems, but whilst it may offer a useful pressure valve it is not a powerful treatment for stress, unhappiness or depression.

Imagine walking into a company where the workers are happy, healthy, full of inspiration, fit, love working, have meaningful family lives, active social lives, and enjoyable relationships at work and in their community. That kind of company would be a pleasure to work in and bound to be efficacious because people would be working to their optimum capacity.

So can we set up a system of true wellness that will serve the development of the employers and their workers and will pay for itself because of the advantages that both sides will gain?

First of all we have to face the fact that we can’t place all the responsibility into the hands of the current health system. Rates of Absenteeism, stress, depression, the very roots of the wellness revolution, have not been solved by the current system. If they had been we wouldn’t have this revolution, we would all be much more well. So we need to look elsewhere for solutions.

We also cannot rely on makeshift feel-great wellness offerings, such as the onsite massage group which visits the office once a month or the wellness day that raises awareness for a little while but leaves most people unaffected. They are easy to organize but have little or no real effect on employee wellness.

Business needs are different than individual needs and many of the new small wellness employers that are springing up simply don’t have the capacity to serve the corporate market. However it is in the best interest of both employers and workers to discover and advance systems of health and wellness that really work – that benefit people to be happy, handle stress, love working, and to have sufficient energy to go home at the end of the day and enjoy their family and social life. So far the corporate world has hijacked the concept of wellness and turned it into a modern version of occupational health. It is time to raise the vision and find out how to make truly healthy, happy workplaces where people thrive.

High rates of employee turnover and the costs of sick days are increasingly taking bites into company profits. The high cost of recruitment programs only adds to the challenges that these problems in total cost the average company. Many employers are finding the solution to these challenges by improving job satisfaction, team building, and the implementation of programs that give a decline in these costs.

It has become increasingly clear to most managers that a well designed wellness program / physical activity program with a strong nutritional and fitness lifestyle emphasis will directly meet this need. Upper Management’s objectives for a productive wellness program must be viewed through the perspective of increased employee productivity, decreased absenteeism due to health related causes, improved employee morale, decreased utilisation of company subsidised health benefits, enhanced group cohesion and effectiveness and a reduction in turnover due to lack of job satisfaction. It is obvious that an improvement in any of these areas will have a positive impact on the monetary status of any organisation.

The benefits from an workers point of view can be seen in improved health, increased energy levels, decreased body fat, a more youthful fit body, an increased ability to handle work related stress, greater feelings of confidence and morale and more social groups at work contributing to greater feelings of satisfaction with their work and workplace.

To be most productive a wellness program needs to achieve both management’s and employee’s objectives, and this can be accomplished through a program that will offer the individual employee with an awareness of their current physical condition and attitudes to fitness and wellbeing, and the benefits of attaining a fitter, healthier lifestyle, and a plan that will allow them to achieve the essential changes to their physical condition that can be applied in the context of their life and work.

The Bottom Line – Company Wellness Programs

Reduced Rates of Absenteeism – Dupont reduced absenteeism by 47.5% over six years for the participants of their company fitness program, (Health Behaviour, March 1992).

Reduced Health Care Costs – Steel case showed a decline in medical care claim costs of 55% for corporate physical activity program participants over non-participants over a six year period – an average of $478.61 for participants vs. non-participants who averaged $868.88, (The Am. Journal of Health Promotion, Sept/Oct, 1991).

Reduced Turnover – Turnover among physical activity program participants at the Canadian Life Assurance Business was 32.4% lower over a seven year period compared with non-participants (Canadian Journal of Public Health, Jan/Feb, 1988).

Positive Return on Investment – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Indiana observed that its company physical activity program had a 250% return on investment; $2.51 for every $1 invested over a five year period (American Journal of Health Promotion, March, April, 1991).

The Partnership for Prevention was formed to bolster Fortune 1000 employers to consider making workforce health a CEO concern and adopt strategies to encourage prevention and wellness. Following several years of double-digit rate increases for health care insurance, employers are realizing that one of the best ways to slow the cost increases is to have workers take more responsibility for both costs and health choices. A majority of employers surveyed feel that the best way for reducing costs is monetary incentives/rewards to bolster workers to adopt healthier lifestyles.

Nearly 100% of employers surveyed say that health costs will be a essential or valuable concern over the next five years, according to a survey by United Benefit Advisors. More employers are adopting higher deductible medical plans with HRA’s or HSA’S, wellness programs, and expanded disease management programs in order to control ever-growing medical care costs.

Failure to deal with these problems could be disastrous for a company. Wayne Sensor, Chief Executive Officer of Alegent Health recently stated, “I think that we have built a medical care machinery we can’t afford. I think we are choking the economic engine of America.” In his October 2005 newsletter, Dr. Andrew Weil stated, “I think rising health- care costs are becoming the big economic concern in our nation”. Obesity costs California employers billions of dollars each year. Projected costs for 2005 may reach 28 billion dollars for direct and indirect medical care costs, worker’s compensation, and lost productivity. California has experienced one of the fastest growing rates of obesity of any state.

According to California Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe, “The obesity epidemic is more than a public health crisis, it is an economic crisis.” What is frightening is that most people do not even realize that they are obese, which is defined as only 20% above normal weight. There is a great need for additional education on weight and resulting diseases, and the workplace is an ideal venue. Wellness education and programs can result in a valuable return on investment and, if structured properly, can produce results in a very short period of time.

Although countless employers have attempted some form of wellness program in the past, results from those efforts have been disappointing. In many cases, the healthier workers participated for incentives/rewards, such as fitness center memberships, but those who required it most did not take advantage of the program in a meaningful way. Companies are looking at ways to bolster more workers to buy into the wellness movement.

A current webinar hosted by Human Resource Executive Magazine and presented by Carlson Marketing Group titled, “Healthier workers; Healthier Bottom Line: Engaging workers is the Missing Link in Managing Healthcare Costs,” drove this point home. This session provided actionable advice on how employers are achieving higher impact with their wellness investments by focusing on employee program engagement. It also highlighted how you can set up an Economic Engagement Model to forecast the potential impact for your company.

Employers can not overlook the concern of their employee’s unhealthy lifestyles and must take action to engage them in a meaningful wellness program to decrease health costs, absenteeism and lost productivity. workers also benefit as they derive better health and greater satisfaction in both their personal and professional lives. The alternative is being caught in a non-competitive position and severely impacting the bottom-line of the company.