Best wellness programs focus on research, results

Unfortunately, it is common for organizations to offer random wellness activities and hope for positive outcomes. A better approach is a results-oriented, well-researched route to affect staff

health and insurance costs.

A 2006 Center for Disease Control and Prevention report said that “50 percent of today’s health care costs are attributable to health risks that can be modified by lifestyle behaviors such as diet and activity.”

Key risk areas include weight, cholesterol, triglycerides, blood glucose and blood pressure. The 10 top medical conditions associated with those risk factors account for the highest employer costs in terms of medical care, drugs, absenteeism and presenteeism, with presenteeism defined as a focused, efficient and productive use of time. Those conditions are: back and neck pain, depression, fatigue, other chronic pain, sleeping problems, high cholesterol, arthritis, hypertension, obesity and anxiety.

Lifestyle factors leading to these medical conditions are safety, stress, nutrition, tobacco, alcohol, physical activity and health history. Workers with problematic lifestyle factors increase insurance costs. Absenteeism and presenteeism account for even higher costs to businesses.

The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine noted in 2005 that the cost of personal health and health-related productivity for employers was $21,267 per employee per year. Wellness programs have been shown to decrease costs when four basic pillars of success are in place.

1. Offer activities that are actually needed, wanted and used. For example, you won’t get smokers to quit who don’t want to quit. You must focus on the risk areas that people are ready to change. Conduct a needs assessment, and collect and analyze the data to determine what programs will meet business goals and team member desires. Measure the interests of employees through e-mails, meetings, anonymous surveys and focus groups. Gather information from your health care provider. Review trends in absenteeism rates. Conduct an anonymous staff health-risk survey. Analyze the health and safety of your physical work environment. Perform health screenings in which the company only receives a report regarding the work force’s overall risk factors. Audit your culture to ascertain if top management imposes rules that can affect associates’ health, such as giving accolades to those who work a lot of hours, discouraging taking time off for doctors’ appointments, expecting people to work even when they have contagious illnesses and discouraging enough recuperation time from accidents and sicknesses.

2. Provide regular, effective communication. How you deliver the message is limited only by your imagination. Consider using CDs, posters, banners, flyers, e-mails, departmental meetings and companywide meetings, just to name a few.

3. Provide meaningful incentives. Conduct a survey to decide what type of incentives would actually motivate team members to participate. Cost-neutral changes consist of increasing deductibles for those who participate and increasing premiums by a certain percentage if workers and/or dependents don’t participate.

4. Maintain data on the usage of each activity, effectiveness of communication, popularity of incentives and various cost measurements. Be quick to change any aspect of the wellness program to better increase utilization and presenteeism, and decrease absenteeism and insurance costs.

Keep focused on the goals of positively increasing associates’ health, and it could impact the company’s bottom line.

Lynne Haggerman, M.S., is president/owner of Haggerman & Associates, a firm specializing in management training, retained search, outplacement and human resource consulting. She can be reached at lynne@haggermanandassociates.com.