“Wellness” is more than just a buzzword. Wellness means having the energy and vitality to be productive, and feel and perform your best. It’s our greatest opportunity to restore Americans and American businesses to better health. Your company’s healthy journey begins now. Step by step, employee by employee, to a new culture of health and a healthier bottom line.
Take a look around. What can you do to make your worksite a healthier environment?
- Have you checked your vending machines lately?
- Got stairs? Anyone using them?
- Are you sending out reminders about how to get healthier and avoid injuries.
Helping your employees improve their health is one of the best long-term strategies for reducing your health care costs. Most people spend 53% of their waking hours at work; you have an incredible opportunity to change the lives of the people you see and work with everyday.
The single issue driving the cost of medical, pharmacy, disability, behavioral health, worker’s compensation, absenteeism and presenteeism (coming to work when you’re sick) is the lifestyle choices people make.
- Chronic conditions such as diabetes and heart disease account for 75% of our nation’s health care costs.
- Obesity costs employers $45 billion annually in medical costs and lost productivity.
- The excess cost to employers of employees who use tobacco, factoring in increased medical cost and loss of productivity increases to approximately $3,400 per year per smoking employee.
When your employees are healthy, there’s a healthy chance that:
- Productivity increases
- Premiums or total medical spending may be reduced
When your employees experience fewer health complications, the result is a healthier, more productive workforce and potentially lower overall health care costs. It’s estimated that over 10 years, cumulative medical cost savings through reduced obesity rates could reach $282.6 billion.
Your Worksite Wellness team will assist you in choosing health screenings, health seminars and other wellness events that will work best for your employees. Help employees identify possible health risks and how they can lower them and start enjoying a healthier life or understand their benefits and treatment options so they’ll be able to make more informed decisions. Once you get a good idea, you can better choose which wellness programs will go over well, so employees will be more likely to participate. Your leaders can be your best wellness champions by sending emails directly to employees encouraging them to participate. Other ideas can include:
- Decide what the focus of your program will be: awareness, education, behavior change, culture enhancement, etc.
- How often will you have an onsite program and how long will it run?
- Who’s the targeted audience: staff only, spouses, dependents, retirees?
- Consider interventions that would impact both the low-risk and high-risk staff.
- Identify incentives that will increase participation such as low cost giveaways for participation or raffle/door prizes like fitness equipment, lunches, gift certificates or even paid time off.
Your wellness team should be a winning combination of management, front line staff and employees from every health status. Lay out a specific plan for your wellness campaign.
