Workplace Wellness: An Attainable Goal

Was workplace 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 workplace’s wellness resolution fallen by the wayside? If so, there are still ways to get back on track.

One workplace 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 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.

All thanks to a single health management program.

So of course, Shirk is a huge proponent of workplace 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 staff.”

Workplace Wellness Decreases Health Care Costs

Though cases like Shirk’s dramatic cancer save are the most desirable effect of workplace wellness programs, it isn’t the initial draw for workplaces. They do it to lower health care costs, and there’s no doubt that workplace wellness programs do just that. Corporate wellness statistics show that 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 workplace wellness savings aren’t just in the health insurance department. Human resource departments report that wellness programs also reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.

Still, companies have been loath to invest that elusive workplace wellness dollar despite the well-documented returns. A Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive survey found that only 10% of small- to medium-size employers have made on-site health screenings - like the one that saved Shirk’s life - available to their employees.

Don’t Let the Other Guys Hog the Workplace Wellness Glory

Fears of ballooning costs and complexity keep companies like yours out of the workplace wellness game, but we at EmployeeWellnessUSA hope that you won’t leave your competitors to reap all the benefits of improved employee wellness. Feel free to browse our information on health management resources or simply contact our workplace wellness experts for a free consultation. We don’t believe better corporate wellness should hurt. Let us show you how we can help make it painless. Your employees will thank you.

Worksite wellness is good for business — and good for employees. We’ve talked about workplace wellness, health management, health and wellness… and if you’ve been paying attention, you probably have figured out what the employee wellness statistics are saying. A good worksite wellness system more than pays for itself in productivity, lower health insurance premiums, and worksite satisfaction.

Now we’ve found out about a new, free tool that you can add to your worksite wellness toolbox — a free worksite wellness report on small business wellness from WELCOA, the Wellness Councils of America. Worksite wellness isn’t just for the big boys, and this worksite wellness report from WELCOA president Dr. David Hunnicutt proves it. In the report, entitled “The Art of Implementing a Great Worksite Wellness Program in a Small Business Setting,” Hunnicutt points out ten critical worksite wellness steps that your small business can take to encourage wellness at your workplace.

The report’s subtitle, “Introducing WELCOA’s Small Business Workplace Wellness Initiative,” illustrates WELCOA’s awareness of the important of small business to the American economy and to wellness for American employees. A few steps from the report that we heartily endorse:

• designate a company wellness leader
• conduct an employee wellness survey to assess worksite health interest
• make on-site health screenings available at the worksite
• administer an annual physical activity campaign to get employees active, and
• promote community health efforts.

Take a look at this worksite wellness report and see what you can do for your worksite — and for your company.