Work Healthier, Not Harder

A happy worker is a productive worker.

Once an old adage used to boost morale around the office, many companies these days are discovering not only a happy, but also a healthy worker can be productive – and save money.

“We feel healthy employees are more engaged and better suited to meet the challenges of the day,” said Melissa Lloyd, vice president and human resources director at Guaranty Bank. “We hope employees can lead a balanced life, and in so doing, help control company health care costs.”

The Springfield-based bank is just one of a growing number of employers offering wellness incentives and programs for its employees.

The Compdata Surveys Benefits USA 2013 poll found 34 percent of employers offering wellness programs either provide insurance discounts for employees participating in wellness programs or impose penalties on employees with risk factors who aren’t taking action. That’s up from 25 percent in 2009.

Gathering compensation data from more then 50,000 organizations across the country during the past 20 years, Compdata Surveys found 28 percent of organizations report making medical premium contributions for employees who participate in their wellness programs, an increase from 16 percent reported three years ago. Health savings account and health reimbursement account contributions are used by 27 percent of employers to reward employees for participating in wellness programs.

“The average premium increase on employer-sponsored preferred provider organization plans has been between 9 and 11 percent each year since 2009,” said Amy Kaminski, vice president of Compdata Surveys, in the study. “With premiums rising at such an exponential rate, employers are desperate to find ways to slash insurance costs. Improving employee health is one of the most promising ways to accomplish this.”

Lloyd said Guaranty recently established an employee-based wellness committee tasked with expanding the bank’s wellness mission and putting a tangible number on the bank’s intangible efforts.

“As long as I have been here – six years – Guaranty has offered employees health club membership reimbursement,” she said, noting the bank reimburses half the annual cost of a single-level membership at any facility, up to $150. “It’s been popular, but we would like to know how popular. What benefits in terms of our health care cost is the bank seeing from this?”

Lloyd said the bank is assessing the impact of its wellness initiative and a company wellness committee is gathering information on the usage of the health club membership and the interest level of employees in expanding wellness related activities.

While wellness is a new trend among some employers to combat rising health care costs under the federal Affordable Care Act, Springfield-based Custom Powder Systems LLC has had a wellness program in place since day one.

“As soon as we had insurance, we had a wellness plan,” said Human Resources Manager DeAnn Kraichely, noting the company opened in 2005 with 25 employees and now employs 98.

“I think wellness incentives are something a company has to have to be competitive. It’s hard to believe a company wouldn’t have incentives to enable their employees to be healthy.”

CPS – a provider of systems to transport, contain, blend and process dry materials for pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, food, nutrition supplement and industrial manufacturing – takes wellness one step further, offering numerous educational opportunities via lunch-time guest speakers, classes on smoking cessation and healthy snacks in the employee vending machine.

“I always say if for every three people who come for the free food, if one of them does something like stop smoking, then the effort is a success,” Kraichely said.

Both CPS and Guaranty Bank utilize CoxHealth as its company health care provider, taking advantage of the health care system’s annual wellness consultations.

“The Cox program is built into the cost of our insurance and each insurance participant has the opportunity to go through a health risk assessment each year,” Lloyd said. “The results divide employees into three tiers of health and options are available from there.”

A health risk assessment provides participants with baseline information and a summary of overall health in a personalized report. Wellness coaching also is available.

According to CoxHealth’s website, wellness coaching provides personalized, one-on-one assistance with a wide range of health care issues, as well as access to personal training, exercise programs and/or nutritional consultation with a registered dietitian.

“If an employee falls into the third tier, an optional 12-week fitness program is available to them, including a nutritionist, physical trainer and the opportunity to talk with a nurse,” Lloyd said of the program, free to employees.

At CPS, Kraichely said the CoxHealth program is a proactive step the company can take to combat rising costs.

“Health care costs have gone up consistently each year I’ve been here,” she said. “This is something we can do to bring those down. They keep going up, but at least we can level it out a little bit.”

In addition to employer-based wellness programs, area hospitals also are taking wellness further by involving the community at large. CoxHealth and Mercy partnered June 11 to bring New York Times best-seller Dan Buettner, author of “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest,” to Springfield. The featured speaker at a breakfast event for business leaders and an afternoon community health conference, Buettner spoke about his research for a National Geographic story regarding the places on Earth people live longest. He identified such common traits as a sense of purpose; natural activities including growing gardens and frequent walks rather than concentrated exercise; little consumption of red meat; and faith and family traditions as the keys to health and longevity.

In addition, the two hospitals also have partnered on the Medical Mile project. A walking trail between Mercy Hospital Springfield and Cox South, the 6.85-mile trail, now open to the public, is a community wellness partnership developed through collaboration between both hospitals, the Springfield Park Board, Ozark Greenways and community volunteers, according to a Mercy news release. Springfield-based Croley Insurance & Financial Inc. owner Andrea Croley had the original idea for a trail connecting the two hospitals more than five years ago and, “wanted to designate the sidewalk along National as a visual reminder that we all need to get outside for fresh air and exercise,” according to a release from the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

“It would be my dream to see more trails run through Springfield,” Croley said in the release. “A network like this could make it possible for people to bike, walk or run to wherever they’re going.”

A formal dedication is planned for August.