Category — Wellness Programs

Exactly how does a wellness program affect the company?

Health promotion programs undoubtedly benefit both the businesss and staff members. Numerous studies have found a direct link, showing that healthful staff members make happy staff members, as a result increasing productivity in the workplace.

Not only are employees who exercise more apt to be productive, but they are more likely to stay with their corporation long term. This saves companies a excellent deal of money in application and turnover costs.

Healthcare costs in the United States doubled between 1990 and 2001. They are expected to double again by 2012. During this time, studies have shown that adult obesity has risen as high as 80 percent in some states. This is a startling statistic. for every 1 percent in Body Mass Index (BMI), a person’s health care costs increase by $120.

Not only is this costly for the employer but it can also be deadly, greatly raising one’s chances of heart attack or stroke. Workers at risk for these two serious medical conditions cost employers thousands of dollars more annually than their healthful coworkers.

Knowing these troubling statistics authorizes corporations to take action.  The first step is to come up with a plan on how to fight these statistics in your worksite. Most adults in this country spend the majority of their time at work.

That is why health promotion programs are so essential. Having access to an exercise facility and other healthful lifestyle options ought to be implemented in every organization. There really is no reason not to.

One study showed that implementing a health promotion program in the worksite, lowered sick time by 28%, lowered the use of health care benefits by 26%, and lowered worker’s compensation claims by 30%.

Take a good look at some of these statistics. Your organization cannot afford not to have a wellness program.

Precisely how can our business increase participation in the corporate wellness program?

Having a corporate health promotion program in place can improve morale, improve fitness and health and increase productivity in the worksite. Now that you have taken the steps necessary to begin a corporate health promotion program, how do you get your personnel interested and willing to participate?

By starting healthy consuming habits, exercise and offering incentives, your staff will not only sign up for the health promotion program, but they will stick with it.

Does your company have an onsite health and fitness center that workforce have access to? If not, offering free or discounted health and fitness center memberships to a local health and fitness center can be an effective method for getting workforce to exercise. Whether the health and fitness center is on or off-site notwithstanding, permitting workforce to use the facility during work hours, such as on their lunch break, will increase the likelihood that they will exercise.

Rewarding employees’ achievements is another way to keep them aroused and living a healthful lifestyle. Setting corporation objectives like collectively walking a certain number of miles, supports team building. Offering incentives like gift cards, certificates of achievement, and even a day off work may be effective ways to keep participation levels up.

Since there will likely be less sick days being used as a result of disease, your organization may  be able to afford to offer a day off pass as an incentive. These incentives don’t have to be expensive, just valuable to the worker.

Providing a healthful lunch once a week for workers participating in the corporate health plan, is a excellent way to promote healthful eating. Offering an incentive of healthful, delicious, free food is one way to reward workers for their efforts while supporting their new healthful lifestyle.

Having a corporate wellness program in place will provide long term benefits to both the corporation and the employees. This is one corporate plan that is definitely worth your time and money!

Why should our business host a corporate health fair?

Do you work in your organization’s human resources department? Are you looking for events to plan for your company this year? When so, it’d be a great idea to look into hosting a corporate health fair. Corporate health fairs are valuable to both the corporation and the employee because they promote overall health, awareness and prevention.

What type of vendors are at a wellness fair?

There are numerous vendors to choose from when bringing a corporate wellness fair to your business.  The most popular vendors include dentists, massage therapists, chiropractors, nutritionists and the American Red Cross. These few popular vendors are a part of a long list available to attend wellness fairs.

Precisely how do we select which providers to include in the wellness fair?

While most vendors are excellent for all workforce, there are some vendors available for organizations with a specific demographic. for example, if your corporation has a lot of pregnant women or women of child bearing age, it could be a good idea to have a vendor particularly talking about prenatal care.

When there are a lot of smokers at your organization, you might want to have the American Lung Association present. Try to select providers that meet your employees’ needs. Do not forget that hosting a corporate health fair is meant to be advantageous to them.

When should we hold a health fair?

Anytime is a great time to host a health fair. However, you could want to consider not scheduling around holidays or busy seasons so that you can maximize participation. Another great choice is having the corporate health fair on a weekend and making it family friendly. Corporate health fairs help keep everyone healthful, consequently increasing work productivity.

Not only does hosting a corporate wellness fair promote health, it also builds friendship between colleagues, bettering team building and communication in the office. It’s a win-win for both the corporation and the employee!

Health promotion programs have been shown to reduce absenteeism, staff member turnover rates, and healthcare costs. It is a key piece of a corporation’s success.  The results of these wellness programs lead to higher productivity, which in the end leads to a more profitable business.

In order for these wellness programs to run properly and produce results they must’ve a clear operating plan with an attainable and measurable goal.  The wellness programs must also encourage all staff to lead a healthy lifestyle while at work and at home.

Wellness programs have been introduced to businesses all over the country in an effort to make personnel healthier and in turn happier. Organizations which implement these health promotion programs do so to varying degrees. Some simply offer literature about how to live a healthful lifestyle and reduce stress while at work.

A number of organizations offer health testings and health risk appraisals for free during the year to help staff members understand what is going on with their health and what they can do to improve it.

At the top of the list, there are the businesses that providefree, onsite fitness centers and aerobics programs to be used at lunchtime breaks or after work. No matter what’s offered it would be a waste not to take benefit of these wellness programs.

It requires careful planning and thought to begin wellness programs. Once a wellness program is put into place it’s very vital that you reassess and analyze it several times for reach the primary goal -  healthier workforce.

All the wellness programs that are put in place must be assessed after a determined time frame to help the company understand what needs to be changed or kept in place to maintain company wellness.

Everybody knows today that working in corporate America could be a stressful situation. It seems that workers are expected to work longer hours and spend more time away from home. Long commutes and large amounts of work are taking its toll on U.S. office staff members. Something ought to be done; company wellness is a good way to begin to help all those stressed out staff members.

Beginning corporation health promotion programs can help develop a healthful culture. There should be an incentive program set up to drive interest to wanting to be more health conscious. Making good decisions that affect health now and in the future should be rewarded as individual’s goals are met.

There are a number of wellness program ideas that a company wellness program can help plan for. Some ideas include giving out maps of walking or jogging trails located near the workplace. It’s a good idea to post a steps collected map on the workplace wall where all staff can log their steps or miles.

Make certain to help encourage walkers, joggers,, and those who enjoy other forms of exercise to form exercise groups to meet before work, during lunch, or after work.

In a organization environment, relationship development is also an area where aligning cultural touch points are necessary. Be sure to work culture affects health practices.

Workers will either form personal relationships in a bad way, like smoking in the break room, or they will form relationships doing something more physical like going for a round of golf for relaxation and developing friendships with fellow staff members. Make sure to work ought to be done to create healthy venues to create specialist friendships and relationships.

There are so many good benefits for a corporation picking  to make corporation wellness a priority. Staff Members who participate in health promotion programs are more likely to be the best employees.

Colleague relationships in the worksite are important to creating a healthful lifestyle culture that lasts.  As an added bonus, overall job satisfaction is better when workforce are feeling well and healthful while doing their work.

Wellness programs are a long-term investment. But how long should you wait for results?

Finance and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) want hard numbers to show Return On Investment.  And wellness Return On Investment is tougher to calculate than, say, a 401(k).

18-month guideline

Recent studies have established some benchmark data on wellness Return On Investment you are able to use as a guideline. It’s useful whether you already have a wellness program or are thinking about starting one.

It typically takes at least 18 months from the launch of a health promotion program to see any results in your healthcare plan bottom line.

For a lot of firms, 18 months is the point at which workers’ bettering health starts to cancel out the cost of sponsoring and administering the health promotion program.

By and large, the long-term cost savings from a wellness program are going to be driven by how much you’re willing to spend. Ordinarily, businesses get what they pay for - both in time and money invested.

As a rule of thumb, the average cost to the company is about $3 to $5 per participating worker per month. Within three years of launch, you should be seeing significant savings.

The average Return On Investment (ROI) tends to be about $4 to $5 saved for every dollar spent. So how can you manage the costs in the short-term in order to achieve the long-term savings?  and how can you maximize the long-term payoff?

Consider making wellness programs budget-neutral

For a lot of corporations, the most effective way to manage the cost of a health promotion program in the start-up phase is to make it a budget-neutral expense.

In other words, the wellness program neither adds to your medical costs at the outset, nor lowers them. Example -  You plan to roll out a wellness program effective Jan. 1.  The wellness program will cost the business $5 per staff member.

You can roll the $5 per month cost directly into the employee’s monthly share of their health care premium. In this age of continuous cost-shifting, most workers are used to seeing small increases in their monthly contributions each plan year.

Just make certain you’re not hitting folks with a big hike on top of that $5. Comparably designed wellness programs pay off about the same - meaning staff members purchase in and participate at the same rate - whether they’re budget neutral or the business absorbs the cost.

But when personnel get clobbered by large-scale contribution hikes at the outset, they often resist the health promotion program.  The long-term Return On Investment for these health promotion programs is often disappointing.

When you’re faced with a situation where achieving a budget-neutral wellness program would trigger push-back, your firm is better off absorbing most or all the wellness costs.

The largest hurdle is to get over the hump for those first 18 months or so.

A few years ago, business health fairs were all the rage. Now they’re making a comeback, with a slight twist.

In the past, the fairs often better served the provider(s) who came onsite than the needs of the hosting business or their workers. More recently, businesses have refined the planning of the events to serve especially to launch or promote a health promotion program.

To be successful, the events need to serve two purposes - improveing worker education and building their enthusiasm to participate in the wellness program.

To make sure you and your personnel get the most out of a health fair, it helps to be aware about the plusses and minuses - and some little touches that can mean the difference between a so-so event and a hit.

Wellness Fairs -  Double-edged sword

On the plus side, staff members received easy-to-grasp information on key wellness topics such as illness detection, symptom control and smarter medication practices. They also receive important services like free blood-pressure screenings.

On the down side, some specialists said the more newfangled events were more like “disease fairs” than “wellness fairs.” In other words, the tone was little too somber and personnel weren’t namely tuned in because they weren’t enjoying themselves.

Wellness program consultant Dr. Ron Goetzel believes that the savviest firms strike a balance in their health fairs. Stick with the screenings, but also feature exhibitors who offer “lighter,” more enjoyable services. Examples -

• A booth from a local health-food store

• A chair-massage station

• elder-care info from the AARP, or

• A “complimentary medicine” info booth (e.g.,a chiropractor or an acupuncturist).

Offering incentives

In many cases, personnel still need an incentive to attend the fair and get the desired screenings, further to doing the fun stuff. Some real-life wellness programs that’ve worked -

• A contest offering prizes to workforce who visit every station

• quizzes and prizes based on info from different providers’ literature

• flex-scheduling or time-off incentives for getting screened (e.g., a comp day or an extra afternoon off), and

• cash incentives (as little as $20 and as much as $100) to people  who voluntarily participate in various screenings.

Medical research has long shown quitting smoking at any age can improve a person’s health.

But a Duke Univ. shows that the group you could think would be the least likely to quit - people  over the age of 50 - might actually have the best odds for quitting through a tobacco use cessation program.

Scientists tracked 573 older patients over 10 years. They found that just 16% of those who joined the tobacco use cessation program later returned to tobacco use.  Meanwhile, previous research has found young smokers who try to quit have a 35% to 45% relapse rate within two years.

Bottom line -   Given the aging staff member population and the cost of retiree healthcare, you may want to keep trying with use of tobacco cessation education for your older workers.

Conducting an Employee Fitness Challenge at your worksite is a fun and arousing way to increase awareness among staff about the importance of starting and sustaining an exercise program.

It’s a concentrated effort in which to engage them in physical activity for a specific period that, hopefully, will help them start a healthy habit that will last a lifetime.

Notwithstanding, it is important to practice wellness year-round. This section provides a robust list of Wellness Program ideas that have been implemented within wellness programs.

All ideas presented in this section have been successful for one or both of the entities. Each activity/idea can be used as a stand-alone event, even when you do not conduct a fitness contest, or can be held joined with your Worker Fitness Contest.

You could want to choose some ideas you think will work for your workforce or think of others and begin your program to develop a better state of health.

The organizations with the most cost-efficient medical programs are the ones that streamline the services personnel receive for both their physical and psychological health.

As a long-term goal, having your general health plan, worker assistance program (EAP) and wellness program communicating regularly with one another about employees’ treatments is the single best way to reduce redundant or contradictory treatments, eliminate unnecessary claims and improve the quality of the plans for which you pay.

Let’s look at the relationship between your health promotion program and your employee assistance program (EAP) to illustrate the importance of attacking healthcare costs cross a wide front.

You can begin a wellness program with a health risk assessment and then, if appropriate, roll out a use of tobacco cessation program or a weight loss program.

But ultimately you want to make sure that your wellness vendor works paired with your EAP vendor.

Here’s why -  It’s very common for an employee to contact the employee assistance program (EAP) because the person feels depressed about his or her weight. What you want is for the employee assistance program (EAP) vendor to treat the employee’s depression and behavioral issues, plus you want the employee assistance program (EAP) to refer the employee to the health promotion program to deal with the root cause of the problem - obesity.

The same thing accompanies the relationship your health promotion program and your workers’ comp provider, STD and LTD providers, rehab people , and/or disease managers. You want all them talking to - and sharing data with - each other. If they’re not, it’s costing you money.

In general, the businesss who achieve the greatest cost savings through their health promotion programs are the ones who overlap wellness with behavioral and occupational health issues.