Don’t be surprised if you hear this question asked constantly by other colleagues and constituents, because the worst may have befallen you and your company: there’s apparently something wrong with your wellness program.
Really? How so? After looking at the operations and whatnot, you’re baffled and don’t understand why there’s such an issue. If it “works,” what then is the problem?
The Benefits Are There, But Are They Being Utilized?
That’s the question you should ask yourself. The plan may be there, but are your employees really benefitting from it? This is typically something CEOs normally don’t think about when considering corporate wellness. Employees may or may not bother complaining. If it’s something offered, they most likely may sign up for it and not ever see any real benefit from it, especially if it involves health and wellness.
It was a study for the Labor Department, conducted by the RAND Corporation in California, showing that almost 50% of employers offering wellness programs and about 90% of corporations with over 50K workers offering wellness programs hardly saw any results in alleviation of certain chronic illnesses, signs of weight loss and even stress reduction. For starters, a certain workplace wellness program funded by Pepsi Corporation ended up saving a monthly average of $30 per individual, but only saving the company a measly $1.46 per member.
Disease management, though, did yield better returns with an estimated $3.78 per dollar spent by the company, the reason being that workers spent less time in the hospital, effectively reducing overall costs to the company’s health insurance premium.
Don’t Get Me Wrong, Though: Those Are Still “Savings”
The question is this: is it enough to be considered ‘profitable’? Maybe, maybe not. $3.78 per employee might not sound like a lot…. Maybe, though, when you add it all up between 50 to 100 individuals it will?
The Key Is to Combine
Review your wellness program. That’s all you need to do. Maybe it’s simply not enough. Statistics actually show that if you combine your original plan with other specific initiatives and lifestyle programs, you may very well see some substantial savings in your employee health insurance, not to mention better productivity as an immediate indirect result of great corporate wellness is the fact that employees will keep coming to work instead of using up their sick days.
Take Pepsi’s wellness program, for instance: overall, with both the disease management and lifestyle components put together, the company saved a total of $160 monthly with an additional 66% drop on hospital visits during the entire course of the program. That’s not bad.
Continue to review your corporate wellness program — the heart and soul of your workforce, really — and you just might accomplish those same kinds of results, maybe even better. As always, though, consult your business lawyer for more information about what you need to know.
About the Author: Matt Faustman is the CEO at UpCounsel. You can follow his business insights on Twitter at @upcounsel.
Cover photo credit: jerryonlife
