Employee Health and Wellness Programs: An Attainable Goal
Was Wellness on your company’s new year’s resolutions list? Here we are a little over midway into the third month of 2008, the time when resolutions start to falter if they haven’t lost momentum completely. Has your Worksite’s wellness resolution fallen by the wayside? If so, there are still ways to get back on track.
One Wellness tip comes to us from the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, reported from the Jersey Shore. Rod Shirk, the YMCA’s chief financial officer, participated in the organization’s first executive Employee Health and Wellness Program, which registered his cholesterol as higher than normal. That prompted him to get a physical, which showed high levels of a prostate-specific antigen that often indicates prostate cancer. The outcome? His doctors caught a life-threatening illness just in time.
Thanks Employee Health and Wellness Program.
So of course, Shirk is a huge proponent of Employee Health and Wellness Programs. He says, “For us here at the YMCA, if we are telling people to be healthy, we had better set a good example for our workers.”
Wellness Decreases Health Care Costs
Though cases like Shirk’s dramatic cancer save are the most desirable effect of Employee Health and Wellness Programs, it isn’t the initial draw for organizations. They do it to lower medical care costs, and there’s no doubt that Employee Health and Wellness Programs do just that. Employee Health and Wellness Program Statistics show that Employee Health and Wellness Programs return anywhere from $2.30 to $10.10 per dollar spent on wellness. “Health care costs should go down as people think about changing their diets and getting more active,” Shirk says.
The Employee Health and Wellness Program savings aren’t just in the Health Insurance department. Human resource departments report that Employee Health and Wellness Programs also reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.
Still, companies have been loath to invest that elusive Wellness dollar despite the well-documented returns. A Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive survey found that only 10% of small- to medium-size organizations have made workplace Health Screening and Biometric Testings – like the one that saved Shirk’s life – available to their workers.
October 24th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Health and Wellness needs to go beyond screenings. It seems that so much of what we read and talk about regarding health and wellness uses words like cholesterol, obesity, heart and screenings. That 10% number is sad, very sad. But perhaps we need to change the talk about health and wellness?
Employees do not want to hear medical terms all the time. Maybe employers need to start talking about walking clubs? Or promoting outdoor activities? Laughter Clubs in the workplace?
I’m not discounting the medical stuff, but while it may be on the mind of HR types and a few (10% obviously) executive types, there are lower cost/free options that can complement any health and wellness initiative. So to the other 90%, did you see the words free and low cost?