BUAD 336 Contribution #5

The Cost of Wellness

                In America, one of the fastest growing health problems is obesity.  While being a little overweight might not be too bad of a thing, if weight gets out of control, it leads to an entire host of other health problems.  This is part of why health care costs are so high in companies.  Employees sit at their desks for hours at a time and eat fast but unhealthy lunches and snacks and gain weight all the time.  A few companies have recognized the connection between their employees’ weights and the number of insurance claims they are getting.  Therefore, to cut the costs, some managers have employed the use of wellness programs.  While these programs can be expensive, the costs of them are covered by the savings in insurance claims and health care costs.  One company’s program, which costs $20,000 to $30,000, cut the cost of insurance claims and such by about $150,000 in the first year.  With that kind of return on investment, the wellness trend is going to spread quickly.  Most of these programs encourage exercising with co-workers to keep each other motivated and build team spirit.  They also encourage healthier eating.  One company has a point system that gives points for buying fresh fruit for a snack throughout the week.  Many companies have walking/jogging trails, showers, and workout rooms to increase the push for exercise.  At Schneider National, Inc., they have a walking trail, a workout room, a yearly marathon, a healthy food section in their cafeteria, and exercise classes offered right in the building.  Confluence has a program that is based on points with fantastic prizes for the top three performers.  This point program costs a little under $10,000, but has already reduced the company’s insurance premiums by about $28,000.  PMSLIC Insurance Co. discovered a problem with competitive wellness programs, though.  If people get out of hand trying to win, they can go past their healthy weight and become underweight.  The company did a walking contest with pedometers where the top walkers would get prizes.  When they realized what was happening as a result of the competitiveness, they modified the program to a random drawing of all the participants for prizes.  This re-motivated those who hadn’t been winning and lowered the intensity with which the top walkers had been going.  With every program, it is important to look at all the angles.  Several companies have proven that wellness programs can cut costs significantly enough that it would be silly not to have them.  It is imperative that managers motivate their employees not just to lose weight, but to find their healthy weight and stay at it.  One company rewarded overweight employees for losing weight, underweight employees for gaining weight, and fit employees for maintaining their weight.  It is good that these companies have paved the way and worked out some of the kinks in the system so that other companies can follow easily.