Wellness Program Incentives

The first step in developing your wellness/Company Wellness Program is to be aware of your business and how Company Wellness Program will fit into the current structure. By researching your organization’s history with similar programs and eliciting feedback from co-staff members, you can discover the best solution for your business.

Corporate Wellness Program: Research Questions

• Find out if Employee Health Promotion Program has been done in the past. If so, what worked and what did not?
• Was it widely accepted?
• Was programming efficacious? Why or why not?
• What does your company hope to gain from launching a Worksite Health Promotion Program?

Answers to these questions will help you start the process of creating a culture of wellness within your organization. It is imperative that you evaluate the environment before starting a program.

The expenditures of health care have been rising more than 10 percent each year for several years. A substantial amount of the money invested in the health 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 services, while about 5 percent is allocated to preventing disease and promoting health.
• Potentially, 50 percent to 70 percent of all diseases are preventable as they are associated with modifiable health risks.
• In an effort to optimize employee health, cut preventable health care utilization and enhance work performance, and in turn decreased health care costs and improve employee satisfaction and retention, many corporations are planning, or are interested in planning, Corporate Health Promotion Programs for staff members.

The benefits of workplace wellness are well documented. More 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 expenditures per dollar invested.
• Savings of $5.82 in cut absenteeism costs per dollar invested.
• ROIs of at least $3 to $8 per dollar invested within five years of program implementation.
• Lifestyle behavior change programs: $3 to $6 return on investment within 2 to 5 years.
• Self care, decision backing programs: $2 to $3 ROI within a year.
• Disease management programs: $7 to $10 return on investment within a year.

By offering health improvement programs, organizations are not only offering an additional service for staff members, but they are also gaining fiscally. Furthermore, the effect of a health improvement program goes beyond diminished healthcare cost and ROI. A health improvement program can affect productivity, absenteeism, morale, recruitment success, turnover, and healthcare expenditures.

• Source: Rees, C., and Finch, R. (2004). Health Improvement: A comprehensive guide to starting, 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 change can be facilitated through a combination of efforts to enhance awareness, modify behavior, and establish environments that support great health practices. Of the three, supportive environments will probably have the greatest influence in producing lasting change.”

Corporate Health Promotion Program: Action Steps

The process of creating a Workplace Health Promotion Program involves:

• Identifying the current health status of your workers
• Determining the appropriate programs and interventions to offer
• Promoting and implementing the programs
• Building in motivational incentives
• Measuring the effect
• 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 Corporate Health Promotion Program

• Conduct an business assessment
• Obtain upper management backing
• Establish a Corporate Health Promotion Program Committee
• Obtain employee input
• Establish goals/objectives
• Design and start program activities
• Identify incentives
• Assess outcomes

One of the ways the government plans to improve the nation’s health is through accross the board Employee Health Promotion 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 change 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 stimulate the proportion of workers that take part in a accross the board Employee Health Promotion Program at their workplace to 75 percent.

5 Ways to Assess and Improve Your employees’ 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 issues from our childhood or current family life into the worksite because we haven’t dealt with them effectively outside of work. This can seriously damage worksite relationships and lead to poor performance and negative feelings all around.

Many tools and techniques exist for helping us improve 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. Workplace Wellness Programs usually have professional backing already in place as part of their services.

1. Health Coaching / Health 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 provide an external source of strength and insight for “working out” emotionally-based concerns rather than “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 internet 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 supplies 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. Evaluate Your Emotional Health: Organizations that seek to boost employees’ interpersonal skills, or emotional intelligence in the worksite are more successful, 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 develop their empathetic skills. These skills are also valuable for workplace health. When we are empathic with fellow workers, we help them resolve harmful or unhealthy emotions. New friendships are made through hobbies, classes, clubs, or even through web-based groups. Many people are finding emotional satisfaction by finding friends through Facebook and other social websites.

Sometimes worksite 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 wonderful wife, a wonderful 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-staff members 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 percent Jump in Employer Interest in Employee Health and Wellness

Worksite wellness for their staff members, companies are discovering, is wonderful for the health of their companies as well. Workplace Health Promotion Programs help to cut the costs associated with poor employee health, which include absenteeism, loss of work rate and poor work quality.

A recent Hewitt Associates survey of over 500 American corporations indicated a important paradigm shift in how corporations view health benefits for their staff members. Of those surveyed this year, 88% are committed to instituting long-term health care assistance programs (over the next 3-5 years) for their staff members, with the goal of boosting the health and work rate of their workforce. This represents a 25% increase in interest in Company Health Promotion Programs over 2007.

A strong offering of Worksite Health Promotion 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 disease in their employees and give them the tools and the information to prevent it. Employers also demand a way to measure the performance of their health care spending.

“Self-care is our motive,” says Vic Lebouthillier, president of progressive wellbeing and health 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 thriving lifestyle modification. Corporations are also telling us they need a cost-effective way to deliver Workplace Wellness Programs. The type of program we have developed over years delivers the highest health care return on investment.”

Combining worksite wellness promotions, online assessments and health trackers, online 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 online statistics about employees’ health also makes it easier to track the bottom line – return on investment” says Vic Lebouthillier.

“Employers are moving beyond their traditional role as a provider of medical care benefits to foster 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.

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

Employers and employees did find common ground when it came to future health care. Both surveys indicate that 95 percent of employees be aware of that their taking care of their health today will effect future health care payments. A similar percentage also be aware of the significant of early detection and prevention when it comes to saving on health care costs.

Cost is significant for most companies as well. Over 80% of those surveyed made cost mitigation a priority for 2008, but those reductions did not involve shifting responsibility for health care onto staff members. Although 64% of companies have transfered expenditures to their staff members, 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 businesses are getting more proactive in assisting their workers to modify 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 businesses they work for. Almost half the businesses surveyed were convinced that changing health behaviors was key to enhanced productiveness and cut absentee rates. Over 60% intend  to institute programs that help workers change and/or sustain a healthier lifestyle. Almost of these businesses will also use data and measurements to be sure their health care strategies meet their health care objectives?

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

The Insurance Problem

The first step in solving the concern is to realize that an employee’s health is their own responsibility. Expecting corporations to provide unlimited medical insurance coverage is simply unrealistic and unreasonable. It’s time for corporations (on a broad scale) to reconsider their role in providing medical insurance coverage. Instead of providing complete coverage for all employees through group plans, corporations must begin to change the burden of health coverage to those covered.

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

Design a “Wellness Culture”

Our current “sickness culture” perpetuates the health care crisis and hastens the demise of market-based solutions. By sickness culture, I mean our focus on health concerns rather than on having a healthy worksite and performance culture.

So, what would a “wellness culture” look like? First, rather than paid sick days, workers might be rewarded at year’s end with an attendance bonus. Staff Members would be reimbursed for thriving completion of smoking cessation and weight-loss programs. Businesses would invest in corporate memberships at local health clubs so every employee can participate. Staff Members would be available in-house wellness programs on a variety of concerns ranging from ergonomics to stress management. Finally, corporations 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 productiveness and improve the likelihood of future expense. While this may seem harsh, it rewards those workers whose personal lifestyle and habits ensure the best Return on Investment by the business committing to hire, train and pay them.

Be open to “alternative and complementary” approaches

Studies published in major 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 work rate. Old prejudices in this area must be discarded in order for corporations to improve work rate and boost profitability

Conclusion

Medical Care expenditures are growing at a staggering pace. Managed care is an abysmal failure. Corporations are buckling under the pressure of providing health coverage to their workers. American competitiveness in the market is sagging. These times call for extraordinary solutions. It’s time for American organizations to consider some out-of-the-box solutions to the medical care crisis. Employer 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 established 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 work rate in companies that enable a Company Wellness Program.

Healthy businesses enjoy better employee morale and an improved ability to attract and retain key people. Additionally, employees are more alert and advantageous. For instance, Coca Cola reports that they save an estimated $500 a year per employee once they implemented a exercise program in which 60% of their employees participate. Coors Brewing Company stated that employees who participated in their Workplace Wellness Programs reduced their absentee rate by 18%.

employees enjoy their share of advantages from Workplace Health Promotion Programs too. A healthy lifestyle impacts every part of a person’s life, including their work environment. Workplace Health Promotion Programs result in fewer injuries, less human error and a work environment that is more harmonious and relaxed. Additionally, employees who work at a employer that implements a Workplace Health Promotion Program know that their employer is concerned about their health & wellness. Workers frequently report a decrease in their stress levels due to Workplace Health Promotion Programs.

As staff members feel better, more relaxed, more valued and more human to their employer; they enjoy a growth in productivity. This growth in productivity, while productive to the employer, is also essential to the employee as it increases their own sense of self worth and confidence levels. Workers who feel successful and who feel that they accomplish goals and objectives are overriding happier and in a better frame of mind.

The advantages of Worksite Health Promotion Programs, both tangible and intangible, are evident. It is a wise move for a employer to start a Worksite Health Promotion Program, particularly when they incorporate some form of mental health aspect into it. This also has social advantages as domestic violence and child abuse is established to be lowered in areas where wellness programs are implemented. These days, a employer 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 enable it determine the safety and health concerns of employees by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the employees.

It can, for example, guide the business into determining how the air quality within an office room affects the users and then help the assessment team to come up with the measures significant to correct the concern. An HRA can also evaluate the level of exposure staff members 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. Nevertheless, it has also become an important component of the top Worksite Wellness Programs in numerous companies in North America.

Immunization shots, such as those used to combat flu, for example, are available to employees for free.

EAP

Employee Assistance Programs consist of a wide variety of services. It can range from providing educational resources to staff members regarding health problems to sponsoring health services and healthcare. In numerous corporations, medical and insurance have also become a staple part of their benefits system.

In-house diet drives

This is another wellness program that companies 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 corporations can implement is a self-powered tool using a newsletter to reward 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 employees or participants of a corporation but it is far from perfect. Some employees, for example, may not read the newsletter entirely or even pay attention to it. If the concerns 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 corporations is one that involves physical activities. Organizations frequently sponsor exercise-related programs such as marathons and business sports programs to bolster staff members to remain fit or lose excess weight. In mid- to large-sized corporations, corporations may even pay for health club memberships or in-house exercise facilities.

Rewards and Incentives

Some of the top wellness programs implemented by corporations involve Rewards and Incentives. This involves corporation-sponsored programs that reward staff members for achieving specific wellness-related objectives. Participation in health campaigns and signing up for wellness programs are two of the most frequently 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 corporations who are willing to modify it in order to fit their unique needs.

Peer Pressure

In many employers, employers take advantage of peer pressure in order to bolster workers to participate in wellness programs. This is currently one of the favorite Corporate Health Promotion Programs currently in use today and growing in popularity. Peer pressure is often leveraged to help reward competitions referring to workplace wellness and to persuade workers to be active in business-sponsored health & 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 well-being. It sounds like exactly what every one is looking for. But when you start to talk about corporate wellness, or worksite wellness, all life goes out of the concept. Total solutions, disease management and health screening do not inspire visions of enjoying life and living it to the full. They start 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 companies – 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 organizations have been largely forced to take on wellness. This is partly through legislative pressure, with numerous countries introducing laws to make organizations liable for stress-related sickness in their staff members. It is also financially motivated, as research has repeatedly determined the enormous expenditures of absenteeism (and increasingly of presenteeism as well).

Whereas the baby boomers are actively looking for new solutions and new lifestyles the businesses are struggling to organize largely traditional and mainstream health systems, such as doctors, nurses, insurance and screening systems. The issue is that the traditional health system does not have solutions for the issues 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 many stress-related health problems are described as chronic diseases, which means that they last for a very long time – or perhaps for the rest of your life – because there is no medical cure. Counseling is a common offering in companies for emotional problems, but whilst it may provide a useful pressure valve it is not a powerful treatment for stress, unhappiness or depression.

Imagine walking into a employer where the staff members 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 employer would be a pleasure to work in and bound to be successful because people would be working to their optimum capacity.

So can we create a system of true wellness that will serve the development of the companies and their staff members 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. 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 can’t rely on makeshift feel-wonderful wellness offerings, such as the onsite massage team which visits the office once a month or the wellness day that raises awareness for a modest amount of while but leaves most people unaffected. They are simple to organize but have little or no real importance 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 employees to discover and advance systems of health and wellbeing that really work – that benefit people to be happy, handle stress, love working, and to have proper 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 discover how to make truly healthy, happy workplaces where people thrive.

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

It has become increasingly clear to most managers that a well designed wellness program / fitness program with a strong nutritional and fitness lifestyle emphasis will directly meet this need. Senior Management’s goals for a beneficial wellness program must be viewed through the perspective of increased employee productiveness, diminished absenteeism due to health related causes, improved employee morale, diminished utilisation of company subsidised health benefits, enhanced team cohesion and performance 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 beneficial effect on the financial status of any organisation.

The benefits from an workers point of view can be seen in improved health, increased energy levels, diminished 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 upper 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 wellness, and the benefits of attaining a fitter, healthier lifestyle, and a plan that will allow them to achieve the significant changes to their physical condition that can be applied in the context of their life and work.

The Bottom Line – Worksite Wellness Programs

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

Diminished Healthcare Expenses – Steel case showed a reduction in healthcare claim costs of 55% for corporate exercise 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).

Diminished Turnover – Turnover among fitness program participants at the Canadian Life Assurance Corporation 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 employer fitness program had a 250 percent return on investment; $2.51 for every $1 invested over a five year period (American Journal of Health Promotion, March, April, 1991).