Company Wellness Programs: Keeping the Resolution

Company Wellness Programs: An Attainable Goal

Was Wellness on your corporation’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 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 Company Wellness Program, which registered his cholesterol as higher than normal. That prompted him to get a physical, which showed high levels of a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) that often indicates prostate cancer. The outcome? His doctors caught a life-threatening illness just in time.

Thanks Company Wellness Program.

So of course, Shirk is a huge proponent of Company 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.”

Wellness Decreases Health Care Costs

Though cases like Shirk’s dramatic cancer save are the most desirable effect of Company Wellness Programs, it isn’t the initial draw for businesses. They do it to lower healthcare costs, and there’s no doubt that Company Wellness Programs do just that. Company Wellness Program Statistics show that Company 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 Company Wellness Program savings aren’t just in the Medical Insurance department. Human resource departments report that Company Wellness Programs also reduce absenteeism and increase productivity.

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