Employee Health and Wellness

Employee Health and Wellness Programs: The Grand Slam

Employee Health and Wellness Programs are as close to a grand slam proposition as you’ll find, according to most researchers and Employee Health and Wellness experts.

But if you have skeptics in your organization who are questioning the time and expense of beginning an Employee Health and Wellness Initiative, you may be wary too. Aren’t staff member Health Promotion Programs subject to the adage “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”?

Employee Health and Wellness Programs Don’t Have To Be Expensive

Fortunately, staff member Health Promotion Programs don’t require a big investment. Like any other corporate project, mismanagement and “death by committee” can inflate the cost of staff member Health Promotion Programs, but it’s hard to spend too much time and money on them. After all, staff member Health Promotion Programs are mostly informational in nature. Flyers, e-mails, maps, and Employee Health Promotion Health and Wellness Fairs can only cost so much. There’s no expensive, specialized Employee Health and Wellness Initiative machinery.

Employee Health Promotion statistics on successful programs are particularly persuasive. Unlike many cost-saving measures, staff member Health Promotion Programs actually add to staff member satisfaction – but they also reduce Health Insurance premiums and staff member absenteeism.

What are some common staff member Health Promotion Programs?
Employee Health and Wellness Programs run the gamut, depending on your worksite demographic, from physical activity for health patients to nutritional initiatives that encourage workers to replace unhealthy snack foods with healthy fare like dried fruit and shelled nuts.

Following are some examples of staff member Health Promotion Programs:

ergonomic safety
cardiovascular disease education and testing
staff member safety
health risk assessments
walking wellness programs
drug testing

Good Employee Wellness Starts with Employee Wellness

Employee Wellness might be the fatal flaw in your Employee Wellness Program. Is Employee Wellness part of your strategy? Does worksite wellness stop when your employees leave the office?

Give Your Employees Health and Wellness Continuity

If employees don’t have the tools to pursue health and wellness on a individual level, then it becomes easy for them to “fall off the wagon” and slide back into a unealthy lifestyles. If you have a walking program, for example, it should encourage employees to build walking routes near their homes, perhaps with the cooperation of the neighborhood association or coworkers who live in the neighborhood.

Employee Wellness Means Never Being “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

Your Corporate Employee Wellness Program coordinators should have “vacation wellbeing” as part of their job scope. In other words, you don’t want corporate health promotion to stop at the boundaries of the worksite campus. Instead, integrate individual health and wellness with your Employee Wellness Programs.

This benefits your Employee Wellness Programs in two ways:

it lowers the chance that the employee will come back to the office feeling unfit, overwhelmed and unable to resume their Employee Wellness Programs; and
it shows that their employer is just as invested in their individual health and wellness as they are

Like a marathon, individual health and wellness is a long-term commitment and it’s difficult for anyone to do in isolation. Simply put, it’s easier to maintain your health when you know others are depending on you and watching your individual performance. It’s easier to stick to an fitness program when you have a jogging partner who wakes you up when you oversleep, or spots you when you’re lifting weights.

Similarly, it’s easier to stick to your Employee Wellness Program when you know your employer is supporting you and wishing you the best.

Don’t Dictate Individual Health

Just as Employee Wellness surveys serve a vital function in building a Employee Wellness Program, it’s critical that you involve employees in designing an off-site wellness strategy. No one enjoys being told what to do, but everyone enjoys having assistance in tacking tough problems. Make it clear that employees are in charge of their own health and wellness. Your role as their health management partner is to support, advise, counsel, offer resources and information.

Of course, don’t forget that part of individual health and wellness responsibility is to offer good health risk assessment baselines so employees can proceed safely on the road to better fitness.

Maintaining Employee Health Promotion during Cold Season can be a challenge for any company. The average adult can get up to four colds in one year, and hundreds of thousands are hospitalized every year for flu complications. From December to March, there are more employees out of the office due to illness, and others who barely made it to the office and can hardly think over their constant coughing and sneezing.

Employee Health Promotion: Prevention is the Key

Prevention is the key to maintaining good health in the worksite and increasing overall Employee Health Promotion. Fighting infection after the cold and flu epidemics hit is a losing battle and can best be combated with early action, such as implementing a corporate Employee Health and Wellness Initiative at the worksite for good health year-round.

Keeping the Office Germ-free During Cold Season

The typical office is the perfect breeding grounds for influenza or the cold virus. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says that there are higher chances for the spread of infection during winter because people spend more time indoors. In an office, this risk is increased by cubicles, bringing many people into a close space. Workplace health screenings conducted regularly as part of an overall health management program will increase the chances of Employee Health Promotion year round, and especially during Cold Season.

Education Can Increase Employee Health Promotion During Cold Season

Educating employees about various ways to stay healthy during Cold Season may help prevent the spread of any sickness to the entire office. Hand washing is a crucial component in maximizing Employee Health Promotion, as bacteria collects on keyboards, mouses, around the water cooler and next to the community coffee pot. As employees shake hands, infection may be passed, multiplying the chance of getting a cold or coming down with the flu. Hand washing and anti-bacterial cleaners for surfaces can help reduce the spread of sickness.

Employee Health Promotion is possible during Cold Season. With Employee Health Promotion, your office can reach one step closer to immunity from sickness during Cold Season.

Employee Wellness: An Attainable Goal

Was Employee Wellness on your organization’s new year’s resolutions list? Here we are a little over midway into the third month of 2008, the time when resolutions start to falter if they haven’t lost momentum completely. Has your Worksite’s wellness resolution fallen by the wayside? If so, there are still ways to get back on track.

One Employee Wellness tip comes to us from the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, reported from the Jersey Shore. Rod Shirk, the YMCA’s chief financial officer, participated in the organization’s first executive Employee Wellness Program, which registered his cholesterol as higher than normal. That prompted him to get a physical, which showed high levels of a prostate-specific antigen that often indicates prostate cancer. The outcome? His doctors caught a life-threatening illness just in time.

All thanks to a single health management program.

So of course, Shirk is a huge proponent of Employee Wellness Programs. He says, “For us here at the YMCA, if we are telling people to be healthy, we had better set a good example for our employees.”

Employee Wellness Decreases Health Care Costs

Though cases like Shirk’s dramatic cancer save are the most desirable effect of Employee Wellness Programs, it isn’t the initial draw for Worksites. They do it to reduce health care costs, and there’s no doubt that Employee Wellness Programs do just that. Health Promotion Statistics show that Employee Wellness Programs return anywhere from $2.30 to $10.10 per dollar spent on wellness. “Health care costs should go down as people think about changing their diets and getting more active,” Shirk says.

The Employee Wellness savings aren’t just in the Medical Insurance department. Human resource departments report that Employee Wellness Programs also reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.

Still, businesses have been loath to invest that elusive Employee Wellness dollar despite the well-documented returns. A Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive survey found that only 10% of small- to medium-size companies have made workplace health screenings – like the one that saved Shirk’s life – available to their employees.

Employee Health Promotion Study Shows Millions Lost Due to Illness

Employee Health Promotion was shown to be a huge economic boon for corporations in a recently-released joint report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Economic Forum (WEF). Nearly three million productive employees in labor markets worldwide add up to a lot of money. The Employee Health Promotion study estimates that China will lose $558 billion, India $237 billion, and Russia $303 billion in national income from 2005 to 2015 due to only three chronic diseases: heart disease, stroke, and diabetes.

Lack of Employee Health Promotion A “Huge Expense”

The United States Center for Disease Control also reports that chronic disease accounts for approximately 75 percent of yearly staff member medical care costs in the United States, which constitutes a huge expense for corporations. And the Public Health Foundation of India estimates that its country will lose 18 million potentially productive years of life by 2030, a statistic no nation can afford, let alone a developing one.

Employee Health and Wellness Programs the Answer

A sustainable solution to these challenges cannot be solved by medical benefits alone. Workplace commitments to Employee Health Promotion are also crucial. Companies are advised to implement on-site health screenings for their employees, as well as look into a comprehensive health management program. These and other precautions are good secret weapons against the economic pitfall of unhealthy employees.

Is It Necessary to Incent Organizations to Initiate Employee Wellness Programs?

Employee Wellness Incentives may seem like an effective way to get employees excited about Employee Health Promotion – but is it wise?

This helps and encourages companies to understand the importance of maintaining a healthy staff members, not only for the welfare of its employees, but as well as the welfare of the corporate bottom line … then, yes, it could be necessary.

Tax Breaks as Employee Wellness Incentives

In 2007, two senators decided to band together to create the “Healthy Workforce Act.” This act is designed to encourage companies to keep employees healthy and prevent disease. The senators believed that having a country focused on “well care” versus “sick care” would decrease the overall costs of health care for everyone. They decided to start with America’s staff members.

The legislation, introduced by Iowa Senator Tom Harkin and Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, states that businesses would receive a Employee Wellness incentive – a fifty percent tax credit – if they offer to their employees a Employee Wellness Program that meets the following criteria:

1) A health education and awareness component, which could include health risk assessments and health screenings.
2) A behavioral change component – such as counseling, seminars, or self-help materials to empower employees to lead healthier lifestyles.
3) A supportive environment component – including offering meaningful incentives to participating employees, such as a reduction in health premiums or allowing employees to engage in walking health promotion programs during the workday.
4) The creation of an employee engagement committee – which would tailor the Employee Wellness Program to the needs of the staff members at a particular organization.

If this legislation gets passed, many companies will be scrambling to offer Employee Wellness Programs in hopes of receiving the Employee Wellness Incentives.

Good Employee Health and Wellness Starts with Employee Health and Wellness

Employee Health and Wellness might be the fatal flaw in your Employee Health and Wellness Initiative. Is Employee Health and Wellness part of your strategy? Does worksite wellness stop when your employees leave the office?

Give Your Employees Health and Wellness Continuity

If employees don’t have the tools to pursue health and wellness on a individual level, then it becomes easy for them to “fall off the wagon” and slide back into a unealthy lifestyles. If you have a walking program, for example, it should encourage employees to build walking routes near their homes, perhaps with the cooperation of the neighborhood association or coworkers who live in the neighborhood.

Employee Health and Wellness Means Never Being “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”

Your Corporate Employee Health and Wellness Initiative coordinators should have “vacation wellbeing” as part of their job scope. In other words, you don’t want corporate health promotion to stop at the boundaries of the worksite campus. Instead, integrate individual health and wellness with your Employee Health and Wellness Programs.

This benefits your Employee Health and Wellness Programs in two ways:

it reduces the chance that the staff member will come back to the office feeling unfit, overwhelmed and unable to resume their Employee Health and Wellness Programs; and
it shows that their employer is just as invested in their individual health and wellness as they are

Like a marathon, individual health and wellness is a long-term commitment and it’s difficult for anyone to do in isolation. Simply put, it’s easier to maintain your health when you know others are depending on you and watching your individual performance. It’s easier to stick to an exercise program when you have a jogging partner who wakes you up when you oversleep, or spots you when you’re lifting weights.

Similarly, it’s easier to stick to your Employee Health and Wellness Initiative when you know your employer is supporting you and wishing you the best.

Don’t Dictate Individual Health

Just as Employee Health and Wellness surveys serve a vital function in building a Employee Health and Wellness Initiative, it’s critical that you involve employees in designing an off-site wellness strategy. No one enjoys being told what to do, but everyone enjoys having assistance in tacking tough problems. Make it clear that employees are in charge of their own health and wellness. Your role as their health management partner is to support, advise, counsel, provide resources and information.

Of course, don’t forget that part of individual health and wellness responsibility is to provide good health risk assessment baselines so employees can proceed safely on the road to better fitness.

Employee Obesity: The Facts

Employee obesity has become one of the fastest growing health care problems in America. It is well known that America is considered one of the, if not “the”, heaviest countries in the world. This is largely in part due to fast food, un-healthy snacks and a very sedentary lifestyle. However, what many people are not aware of is that the rate of obesity in our country has doubled in the last 30 years and this weighs heavily on a organization’s bottom line.

According to a new report from The Conference Board, Weights and Measures: What Employers Should Know about Obesity, obese employees cost private companies an estimated $45 billion annually. Following are some of the report’s findings:

Obesity is associated with a 36% increase in spending on health care, more than smoking or problem drinking.
34% of adult United States citizens fit the definition of “obese”
Obesity related health problems are costing U.S. businesses millions of dollars annually in medical expenditures and work loss.

Employee Obesity: How companies Can Help

With the increase in obesity and employer costs associated with it, it is more and more imperative to establish a way to assist employees with their healthy living choices. Employee Wellness Programs can help companies help their employees. By providing assistance with health screening, health risk assessments and by conducting Employee Health Promotion surveys; Employee Wellness Programs allow the employer non-invasive ways to communicate their concerns about their employee’s health.

We suggest establishing a Walking Employee Wellness Program to assist your employees in meeting their weight-loss goals. Walking Wellness is a program designed to get your employees away from their desk and get them outside for a little physical activity. Keep it fun by having contests, setting up weight-loss teams and having organized healthy picnics.

Employee Health and Wellness Programs – With Perks

Employee Health and Wellness Programs don’t always stir the blood of employees, even though they’re designed to do just that. How do you get employees to enroll in Employee Health and Wellness Programs – and stay enrolled?

The brochures for these programs tout the benefits to employees and businesses. Employee Health Promotion statistics show that there are tangible benefits. Employee Health and Wellness Programs actually do save lives by getting workers to take their health seriously.

However, St. Louis, Missouri-based Maritz Inc., the world’s largest incentive company, has applied their own invigorating twist to health management by providing gift rewards to employees who participate in Employee Health and Wellness Programs. The gift reward program is Maritz’s own Exclusively Yours® plan. Health management participants earn points, which can be then redeemed for merchandise, electronics, restaurant vouchers and travel, much like a frequent-flier program.

Enrollment incentives in Employee Health and Wellness Programs?

Undoubtably corporations that don’t work in the incentives industry will be tempted to cry foul about using such a rich carrot to incentivize health program enrollments. Not every company can throw that kind of money at health management resources – and not every company has the built-in cost savings as a business that specializes in providing incentive programs.

For certain rich incentives like Maritz’s will break through the glaze that appears over many employees’ eyes when they’re encouraged to do something new, different or difficult. For many employees uncomfortable with health management and physical activity, “new, different and difficult” would apply to Employee Health and Wellness Programs. So where does that leave businesses who are unwilling or unable to provide incentives for health management program enrollment?

Successful Employee Health and Wellness Programs motivate employees – before and after signup

Health management program administrators should keep the long-term view in mind when trying to get employees to take that critical first step. Even the best incentives can fail in the face of faltering organization, badly-designed Employee Health and Wellness Programs and wavering support. Make sure to run good Employee Health and Wellness surveys before you build your Employee Health and Wellness Programs so staff member input and needs are being met by your Employee Health and Wellness Programs. The goal is positive outcomes, not high enrollment numbers.

Employee Health and Wellness Programs cannot survive managerial apathy. If executive and managerial participation is widespread and heartfelt, employees will follow their leadership. The potential rewards and Employee Health and Wellness benefits are clearly worth reaping, for both your employer and your co-workers.

What is a Employee Wellness Program Proposal?

You probably have seen this term many times and wondered what exactly it means. A Employee Wellness Program Proposal is a proposal put together by a wellness consultant that makes suggestions for what type of Employee Wellness Programs you should choose, what tools you will need to accomplish your corporation’s wellness goals, and costs associated with it.

Employee Wellness Program Proposals Assist Human Resource Departments

A Employee Wellness Program Proposal is a great thing to have in hand when HR Departments go to upper management to request funding for a Employee Wellness Program. It will offer necessary stats and trends, background information, and costs that will enable the HR Department to fully present their case. Upper management will appreciate the preparedness and the research that has gone into your wellness request.

Employee Wellness Program Proposals Lead to Better Employee Wellness Programs

A well thought out Employee Wellness Program Proposal can lead to a better Employee Wellness Program, because the building blocks will already be in place. Employee Wellness Program Proposals will guarantee that your corporation gets the proper Employee Wellness Program established. Employee Wellness Programs can vary greatly, but when your employees ask, you can tell them that they generally include the following:

Walking programs which offers employees with incentives to take their walking breaks at their worksite.
Company teams, worksite yoga classes and massage therapists at the worksite.
Nutrition advice, weight-loss and healthy cooking classes, stress management sessions, and either an Employee Health Promotion resources column in the employee newsletter or a wellness newsletter.
Stairwell initiatives to show how stair-walking can improve health.