Corporate Wellness Incentive Plans

High rates of employee turnover and the costs of sick days are increasingly taking bites into business profits. The high cost of recruitment programs only adds to the challenges that these issues in total cost the average business. Many organizations are finding the solution to these challenges by increasing job satisfaction, team building, and the implementation of programs that yield a decline in these costs.

It has become increasingly clear to most managers that a well designed wellness program / fitness program with a strong nutritional and fitness lifestyle emphasis will directly meet this need. Upper Management’s objectives and goals for a constructive wellness program must be viewed through the perspective of increased employee productiveness, lowered absenteeism due to health related causes, improved employee morale, lowered utilisation of corporation subsidised health benefits, enhanced team cohesion and effectiveness and a reduction in turnover due to lack of job satisfaction. It is obvious that an improvement in any of these areas will have a beneficial influence on the financial status of any organisation.

The benefits from an staff members point of view can be seen in improved health, increased energy levels, decreased body fat, a more youthful fit body, an increased ability to handle job related stress, greater feelings of confidence and morale and more social groups at work contributing to greater feelings of satisfaction with their work and workplace.

To be most constructive a wellness program needs to achieve both management’s and employee’s goals, and this can be accomplished through a program that will support the individual employee with an awareness of their current physical condition and attitudes to fitness and wellbeing, and the benefits of attaining a fitter, healthier lifestyle, and a plan that will allow them to achieve the essential changes to their physical condition that can be applied in the context of their life and work.

The Bottom Line – Workplace Health Promotion Programs

Lowered Absenteeism – Dupont reduced absenteeism by 47.5 percent over six years for the participants of their employer fitness program, (Health Behaviour, March 1992).

Reduced Health Care Expenditures – Steel case showed a decline in medical care claim expenditures of 55% for corporate physical activity program participants over non-participants over a six year period – an average of $478.61 for participants vs. non-participants who averaged $868.88, (The Am. Journal of Health Promotion, Sept/Oct, 1991).

Lowered Turnover – Turnover among exercise program participants at the Canadian Life Assurance Employer was 32.4% lower over a seven year period compared with non-participants (Canadian Journal of Public Health, Jan/Feb, 1988).

Positive Return on Investment – Blue Cross Blue Shield of Indiana found that its employer physical activity program had a 250 percent return on investment; $2.51 for every $1 invested over a five year period (American Journal of Health Promotion, March, April, 1991).