Trimmed waistlines, bigger bottom lines!

Corporate Wellness Programs go a long way in increasing employee productivity

Eisha Sarkar

Posted on Hello Wellness on Oct 12 2010 5:58PM

Stress at work is inevitable. Employees complain of long hours, demanding bosses, tight deadlines, irreverent subordinates, absent colleagues, sleepless nights, back aches and other health problems. The managements hold their own without realising that such stresses can do damage to more than just employees. According to a recent report, preventable job stress drains $730 million a year from the Australian economy. And that's just one country!

The study conducted by the University of Melbourne's School of Population Health and Tasmania's Menzies Research Institute also suggests that employers would be the major beneficiaries of reducing job strain over the long term, because the greatest costs fall on employers due to lost productivity absenteeism, compensation claims, health insurance and medical expenses.

In 1998, the non-profit Health Enhancement Research Organization (HERO) reported a study of 46,026 staffers from six large organisations for three years. Staffers with an inactive lifestyle had 10 per cent higher costs; staff members with depression had 70 per cent higher costs. To set a few wrongs right, many companies have now started implementing corporate wellness programs for the benefit of their employees.

What's a corporate wellness program?
Alternatively called workplace wellness program, a corporate wellness program combines educational, organisational, and environmental activities to support behaviour conducive to the health of employees in a business and their families.

Workplace wellness initiatives may include:

• Awareness raising activities: Through health newsletters, emails, fliers
• Health Risk Assessment (HRA): Employee health screenings, wellness fairs, health risk appraisals
• Educational Programs: Lunch-and learn wellness presentations, guest speakers at staff meetings
• Skill Building: Healthy cooking demonstrations, activity challenges, stress management classes, weight management classes
• Interventions: Massage, tobacco cessation, and skills to help you get the most out of your doctor visit
• Physical environment: Healthy items in the vending machines and cafeterias, clean air practices, well-lit staircases
• Evaluation: Worker needs assessment, assessment of Corporate Health Promotion Initiative

While corporate wellness programs normally evolve out of an employer's need to cut health care costs, they also help reduce chronic disease risk, decrease rates of illness, injury and disability, reduce absenteeism, increase employee productivity and efficiency, improve morale and lower stress levels and enhance retention of healthy employees.

How does it help the company?
Costs are always a concern for businesses, and corporate wellness programs are effective in lowering them. Studies conducted by the University of Michigan's Health Management Research Center showed savings for an individual company of $80 million dollars after the implementation of an effective wellness program.  Another report stated that The Canada Life Assurance Company realised a four per cent rise in productivity after beginning an employee fitness program while employee absenteeism dropped by 42 per cent. Healthier employees mean healthier bottom lines!

However, cost-savings are realised over the long term, and on an aggregate population. The actual costs of implementing a wellness program are immediate, per employee, and getting bigger by the year.

Shaping up can be rewarding
When corporate wellness programs first emerged two decades ago, companies tried to woo participants with the promise of better health, and inexpensive gifts such as T-shirts, baseball caps, backpacks, emblazoned water-bottles, and gift-vouchers.

But these days, CEOs are willing to put real money on the table for widespread employee participation in wellness programs.  In order to get their employees in shape, companies have started providing much more than gyms and low-calorie meals.

Employees of The Kellogg Company can shave up to $1,100 per year off their health insurance premiums if they complete an HRA, demonstrate that they are non-smokers (or participate in a cessation program), and engage in other healthy lifestyle change. They can also earn additional rewards for getting vaccinated against influenza, meeting weight-loss goals, participating in health-coaching programs, and taking part in company fitness challenges.

In their paper, Bottom Line Booster Shot: Corporate Wellness Programs, Barbara Hendrickson and Stacie Pinnavaia note, “A long-term study by Johnson and Johnson indicated that healthcare costs were $225 less for each employee who participated during a four-year period and that voluntary participation increased from 26 per cent to 90 per cent when incentives were offered."

Companies with wellness programs offer employees incentives to reach a number of different goals. A company with a lot of men over 40, for instance, might reward proper diet and exercise; one with a lot of women under 40, obtaining pre-natal care during pregnancy; and one whose employees do a lot of driving on the job, wearing their seat-belts. The most frequent goal, by far, is to have employees quit smoking, but other common goals include better health via aerobics, biking, jogging, walking, or swimming and losing weight.

Greater job satisfaction
While they help improve attendance rates and lower insurance costs, corporate wellness programs have been shown to lead to higher levels of job satisfaction among employees. The employees in turn, generally have higher levels of satisfaction for the companies with which they are employed. That means higher levels of employee motivation and morale, which, in turn, higher productivity. No longer does it remain just another job!