Wellness at Your Work
As an employee, you spend over a third of your waking hours working. That time is even increasing, with the advent of tools like laptops and PDAs. So, let’s make them count.
Research has shown that workplace wellness programs have a significant return on investment for your employer in reduced cost and increased productivity. Medical costs fall about $3.27 for every dollar spent, and absenteeism costs fall by about $2.73 for every dollar spent.
Oftentimes, the C-suite understands that poor health affects productivity and, thus, the bottom line, but what’s in it for employees? After all, improved health may mean changes, and even small changes can be hard.
Wellness programs are typically offered at no cost to employees, and in some cases employees qualify for reduced premiums or preferred benefit options by participating in the wellness program.
Reasons to Participate
There are a number of reasons why employees should want to participate in a workplace health program:
- Saves time because health services, screenings, HRAs and lab work are done on-site
- Increases morale, knowing your employer cares about your health and well being
- Reduces out-of-pocket and premium costs for medical care
- Increases knowledge about the relationship between lifestyle and health
- Improves health and quality of life through reduction of risk factors
- Reduces work absences, so there’s less need to play catch-up
How to Begin
While each workplace is different, your best chance for implementing a results-oriented wellness program at your organization helps if you a broad range of support. Whether your effort is grassroots or whether it has CEO or senior-level support, buy-in and engagement are essential to a program successful in containing costs and improving health.
Workforce Health endorses the Wellness Council of America’s (WELCOA) seven benchmarks of a results-oriented workplace wellness program. In fact, we encourage you to get started by taking WELCOA’s Well Workplace checklist.
WELCOA's Seven Benchmarks of results-oriented workplace wellness programs include:
Call us at 262-253-5150 to help you get your wellness program underway.
- Capturing CEO Support
- Creating Cohesive Wellness Teams
- Collecting Data To Drive Health Efforts
- Carefully Crafting An Operating Plan
- Choosing Appropriate Interventions
- Creating A Supportive Environment
- Carefully Evaluating Outcomes
Workforce Health will work with your company’s leadership as well as its wellness team throughout the process of gathering data, crafting a plan of appropriate interventions, and benchmarking and evaluating so you know the plan is working.
