In today’s busy culture, it is hard to find time for a healthy meal.  It is difficult to find time to exercise, or to get recommended preventive health care, such as a mammogram, a flu shot, or a colorectal screen.  It seems there is little time even to relax. Our time is stretched thin these days. We work more, eat more, stress more, drive more and as a result, our health is failing.

Employees are spending the majority of their waking hours at your workplace. As an employer, you have a unique opportunity to affect change in their behavior at the workplace. An employee wellness program is about decreasing your organization’s and your employees’ health care expenditures, improving the lifestyle and health of your employees, increasing productivity and morale, as well as demonstrating to your employees that you care about their health. Wellness programs provide the opportunity to use health as a proactive paradigm instead of reactive. Wellness programs result in a return on investment because behavioral changes lead to a decrease in preventable diseases. Healthy and happy employees are more productive—and your business benefits.

Today, many businesses are spending more money on health care expenditures than they are on their product. Ten and a half percent of the average payroll costs go toward health insurance (1). Most businesses are experiencing double-digit increases in their health insurance premiums. Some are absorbing these costs, while others are passing increases on to employees. Either way—it is a lose-lose situation.

The investment in an employee wellness program will bring more rewards than health care cost containment alone. Employee wellness programs are an investment in human capitol and will increase your employee’s productivity, morale and decrease absenteeism. An employee wellness program will enhance your corporate image and employee retention rates.  And it will help you recruit new talent into your business. On a more global scale, investment in an employee wellness program will lead to betterment of our state’s overall health—and to the betterment of our economy.  

Company health premiums are adjusted according to health care provider use by employees. Most of the leading causes of premature death and disability are preventable. Prevention offers an employer plenty. When your employees are healthier:

• They make fewer claims;
• They use fewer prescriptions;
• and They face fewer catastrophic illnesses.

Adults with multiple risk factors for premature death and disease-such as tobacco use, poor dietary habits, high blood pressure, and a sedentary lifestyle, are more likely to be high-cost employees in terms of health care expenditures, absenteeism, and productivity. Healthy employees and healthy dependents are likely to incur lower medical costs, have lower rates of absenteeism and higher productivity. Fortunately, many risk factors of premature death and disability are preventable with behavior modification. An Employee Wellness Program can help provide this behavior modification. (Click here to find return on investment information in an employee wellness program).

Employee health promotion programs work and can improve employee health status. There have been hundreds of studies conducted on employee health promotion programs at varying levels of programming technique and maturity, all proving that worksite wellness programs will positively impact health behaviors and health risks. (Click here to find more information).

Employee wellness programs are programs initiated by the employer to improve the overall health of their labor force and to help individual employees overcome specific health-related hurdles. There are many different types of wellness programs. According to an article by Larry Chapman, Founder of Summex Corporation, and WELCOA, most wellness programs fit into three main categories: Quality of Work Life Level, Traditional programming level, and Health and Productivity Management level (2). (Click here to see the article and learn more about these different levels). In every case, however, the employer is making a business investment in employee health that will directly impact the company’s bottom line in one way or another.

(1) Kaiser Family Foundation (2008). Employer Health Insurance Costs and Worker Compensation.
Retrieved March 5,2008, from Kaiser Family Foundation’s Snapshots: Health Care Costs
Website: http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm030808oth.cfm.

(2) Hunnicutt,D. (2007). A WELCOA expert interview with Larry Chapman.
Retrieved January 21, 2008, from Wellness Councils of America: Free Resources: Expert Interviews
Website: http://www.welcoa.org/freeresources/pdf/chapman_proofpos_051807.pdf