A recent article in the Herald-Citizen, a Tennessee publication, talks about how the Cookeville Regional Medical Center has implemented an employee wellness program that’s working out very well. The director and vice president of human resources at the medical center noted that it’s all about the incentives when it comes to employee wellness programs.

With incentives, employee wellness programs can be fun and rewarding. They motivate employees to want to join in. Some incentives can include paid days off work, discounts on insurance, bonuses, money and more. One incentive may appeal more to one employee wellness program participant, but it seems safe to say every participant has their eye on one of the rewards. Especially with the holiday season, many of the participants of CRMC’s Employee Wellness program found the paid time off, money prizes and bash back off health insurance to be very appealing. Some say that the employee wellness program is an extra push that helps them meet their health goals, and that’s certainly a big reward.

This is a yearly event for CRMC, and they note that some find it comforting to have it happen each year. Some participants go up and down with their goals, while others improve a bit each year. Simply participating in the program provides employees encouragement to be healthier and stick to it.

The article points out how investing in the lives of employees can be a good thing, as they are one of the many assets of an organization. Implementing an employee wellness program can help improve morale and health. It can also lower health insurance costs and improve a company’s bottom line.

If you’re interested in starting up an employee wellness program at your place of business, contact Employee Wellness USA to find out your next steps and get a free wellness proposal.

The Northeast Human Resources Association (NEHRA) is out with a story regarding the 10 Steps to a Healthier Employee Population in 2009. Just in time for the new year, this list gives great tips for getting healthier employees by promoting employee wellness next year.

The article points out the three major benefits of employee wellness. Cost savings is the first benefit, and the NEHRA says employee wellness can simply lead to an improved bottom line, with companies experiencing savings a variety of ways. The next major benefit of an employee wellness program is fewer missed days of work. With obesity able to cause or worsen things like cancer, heart disease, mental illness and stroke, the NEHRA says it’s costing workplaces in lost productivity — to the tune of $1.1 trillion. A lot of this cost, says the NEHRA, can be avoided. Lastly, the story notes that the third major benefit of employee wellness is happier employees. A happy, healthy worker is less likely to seek out a new job, plus they feel better about work.

Those employers who are interested in implementing employee wellness programs and seeing healthier employees in 2009 are encouraged to take action to make it happen. The NEHRA has a few tips for doing this, like providing a monthly newspaper or recipe, starting a walking group and bringing fitness to them. They also advise creating a monthly theme, where guest speakers and seminars could happen that would relate to that theme.

2009 will be here before you know it, so waste no time if you’re thinking about implementing an employee wellness program at your business. Employee wellness programs not only improve a business’ bottom line, but they can improve employee morale, boost productivity and help corporations save money. At the same time, there are benefits to the employees. It’s really a win-win situation for everybody.

To get a free wellness proposal for your company and find out more, don’t hesitate to contact Employee Wellness USA. An investment in employee wellness is one that can truly pay off.

A recent article in LJWorld.com talked about how wellness programs are increasing in popularity, since it’s a way for companies to cope with rising health care costs. Cutting costs by changing insurance companies or changing plan designs have already been tried, as businesses have been doing all they can. But, as the article points out, five years ago companies began to realize that 70 percent of costs having to do with health care are due to preventable conditions. Smoking, Type II Diabetes, obesity — these are all preventable conditions, and they are estimated to cause illnesses that cost the U.S. health care system about $100 billion every year.

According to the article, around 85 percent of United States businesses have wellness programs. Companies are working to make their wellness programs more effective by offering incentives, for example. Employers realize that good wellness programs can help save them money. Not to mention, wellness programs can improve productivity and help cut down on absenteeism.

Spotlighted in the article was the wellness programs put in place by the Kansas Health Policy Authority were designed to promote healthy lifestyles and personal responsibility and therefore control costs. Because of their initiative, the Kansas Health Policy Authority was awarded for their innovative strategies from the Institute for Health and Productivity.

One of the things included in the wellness program was incentives for smokers to quit smoking and for non-smokers to continue being non-smokers. Another part of the plan included an outreach for people who suffer from chronic health conditions.

This wellness program is available to nearly 76,000 people and was expanded this year to include things like health screenings and health coaching. They offered an incentive — a $50 gift card — to participate in a health screening and wound up with over 15,000 people taking them up on that offer. After people participated in the health screening, the hope was that they’d take that information to a health coach in order to get some support behind them.

Another wellness program mentioned in the article is going on at Lawrence Paper Co., a company with 280 employees. An on-site clinic is part of their wellness program, and it can provide things like lab work, shots, wellness checks and prescriptions two days per week. This has helped save employees time and money, and the company has seen their health care costs lowered already.

Start a Wellness Program at Your Business

Start a wellness program at your business — it’s a win-win situation for everyone. Employees get improved health and higher morale, and employers see lower health care costs and higher productivity. Contact Employee Wellness USA today to find out more and to get an evaluation of your company.

Companies that have instituted employee wellness programs talk about the improvements they’ve noticed around their workplace in a recent article from InsuranceNewsNet.com. Of those improvements, they mention that they’ve noticed employee morale and camaraderie has gone up.

It’s no secret that employee wellness programs lead to a better workplace when they’re implemented correctly. Business are always looking for ways to improve productivity and the bottom line. Also, experts have pointed out that employee wellness programs keep health insurance premiums reasonable for corporations.

In the article, they talk about how suggesting to employees that they need to exercise can “nudge against privacy concerns,” so they instead have to figure out how to get people to want to be healthy. Easier said than done, sure, but it’s worth trying.

One company, for example, added an online wellness program to their insurance, which allowed participants to redeem points they accumulated for prizes like TVs and magazine subscriptions. This system paid off more than they probably ever imagined when one woman got a physical and a mammogram and found out she had breast cancer. Since it was caught so early, she is expected to recover.

Another thing employee wellness programs can help with is absenteeism. Though, as the article points out, presenteeism can be just as bad as absenteeism when employees show up for work when they’re sick. Some do it because of their work ethic, while others may do it because they just can’t afford to miss the day. But presenteeism affects the bottom line just as absenteeism does.

To help with this problem, one recycling company started offering a half-day medical clinic every other week, where employees could drop in to get minor problems like a sore throat checked out by a doctor. This was beneficial since employees didn’t have to take a half-day or full day off of work to go to the doctor. The company says this measure has helped to control their insurance costs as well as help with productivity.

A fascinating article in the Rocky Mount Telegram talked about how earlier this week at a seminar in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, experts got together to discuss the benefits of healthy workers. These experts talked about how employee wellness programs increase productivity and keep employees healthy, which also means health care costs paid by businesses are kept low.

Benefits of healthy workers include decreased days of calling in sick and higher productivity and efficiency, and healthy workers can even keep health insurance premiums at bay.

Still, to get the benefits of healthy workers, these employee wellness programs need to be implemented successfully. And what’s very important, noted the experts at the seminar, is that there be incentives that make participation appealing to the employees. While this may sound expensive, it actually doesn’t have to be, said the experts. Incentives can be something as simple as a gift card or a T-shirt.

Other ways to make an employee wellness program successful in order to see the benefits of healthy workers include:

• Offering an ergonomically efficient workplace that reduces the risk of employee injuries
• Encouraging workers to take the stairs by painting the steps
• Creating an environment that encourages exercising while taking a break
• Tracking workers’ steps with a pedometer, then raffling off prizes monthly for people who take a certain amount of steps

An expert on the panel remarked that employee wellness programs typically help keep health insurance premiums reasonable. Another expert suggested to keep in mind that you should try to make employee wellness programs fun, and change up what you’re doing in order to find what works.

The benefits of healthy workers are undeniably valuable to businesses as well as employees. If you’d like to start offering an employee wellness program at your business, contact EmployeeWellnessUSA today to get started with an evaluation of your business. You will also get a free wellness proposal to assist you in your approval efforts.

Worker wellness is in the spotlight more and more as businesses are starting to see the benefits of helping their workers adopt healthier lifestyles, says a recent article in the Press and Sun-Bulletin. Seeing just how much of an asset physically and mentally healthy employees are to a successful company, businesses are implementing worker wellness programs.

From providing an in-office gym with treadmills and weight equipment, to encouraging enrollment in weight-loss programs, companies are seeing improvements in worker wellness. For instance, the amount of times employees call in sick has gone down. Ultimately, the businesses implementing worker wellness programs are trying to improve their bottom line. Stressed-out, tired, sick employees can hurt their bottom line. But successful worker wellness programs can help keep workers healthy and happy.

The article mentions the metrics involved in running a successful worker wellness program. There are seven total benchmarks, according to the Wellness Councils of America. Those seven are:

• Cohesive wellness teams
• Senior-level support
• Data to drive a results-oriented wellness initiative
• An operating plan each year
• An environment that’s both supportive and health-promoting
• Appropriate interventions
• Program outcomes that are carefully evaluated

For worker wellness programs, the Wellness Councils of America recommend keeping in mind these seven benchmarks to help make the program successful. The goal, of course, is to have workers be the best they can be.

Many businesses are drawn to worker wellness programs because they provide a return on an investment. You can bet worker wellness programs are attractive to businesses, especially when they improve worker performance and cut down on workers calling in sick as well as disability and workers’ compensation claims. Additionally, having a worker wellness program is a way for an employer to show workers that they are genuinely concerned about their health.

The article concludes that an essential part of a successful worker wellness program is that there’s support from the management along with supportive — not aggressive — communication.

Worker Wellness Programs: Get Started

Interested in starting up a worker wellness program at your business? Get started by finding out more from Employee Wellness USA. We have years of experience developing worker wellness programs for major corporations, and we even offer free wellness proposals.