Corporate Wellness Blog

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

It has become increasingly clear to most managers that a well designed wellness program / physical activity program with a strong nutritional and fitness lifestyle emphasis will directly meet this need. Senior Management’s objectives and goals for a constructive wellness program must be viewed through the perspective of increased employee work rate, decreased absenteeism due to health related causes, improved employee morale, decreased utilisation of employer subsidised health benefits, enhanced group cohesion and effectiveness and a decline in turnover due to lack of job satisfaction. It is obvious that an improvement in any of these areas will have a beneficial impact 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 work 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 beneficial a wellness program needs to achieve both management’s and employee’s objectives, and this can be accomplished through a program that will offer 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 significant changes to their physical condition that can be applied in the context of their life and work.

The Bottom Line – Company Health Promotion Programs

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

Diminished Medical Care Costs – Steel case showed a decrease in medical care claim expenditures of 55 percent 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).

Reduced Turnover – Turnover among physical activity program participants at the Canadian Life Assurance Company 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 reported that its business physical activity program had a 250% return on investment; $2.51 for every $1 invested over a five year period (American Journal of Health Promotion, March, April, 1991).