Corporate Wellness Programs in San Francisco: Why Is It Important To Keep Employees Healthy And Happy?
Recently, there has been a lot of hype related to corporate wellness in San Francisco and throughout the rest of the country. As frequently and commonly the term has been used, it is equally surprising to know that only a few companies are fully incorporating it.
To begin with, corporate wellness is a culture of wellness and creating a healthy environment at work. This not only keeps the employees healthy but also increases their participation. However, there is no set definition of a wellness program. It may appear different for different companies but should be tailor-made according to the needs of the employees. Many firms prefer to extend preventative facilities like biometric screenings and health fairs, while others stress on health education. There are also others that specifically pinpoint on issues like smoking cessation or physical workouts. All of these are fine options for creating a wellness program intrinsic to the requirements of your workforce.
But, the major question is, why should a corporate focus on corporate wellness? Perhaps, because it boosts the productivity? Let’s see how!
Why Is It Essential To Keep Employees Healthy?
- Boosts productivity
Recent statistics show companies with active corporate wellness programs tend to witness an 8% hike in employee productivity!
That’s perhaps because corporate wellness programs address issues like emotional betterment, mental health as well as financial well-being. Further, many programs have also reached into the houses to influence the health aspects of spouses and dependents. Events like health fairs and health risk evaluation help employees to receive information, set objectives and track progress. Corporate wellness is basically driven by the rare planning behind it and outlines both short and long-term objectives for the employee and the employer. It is the result of numerous solutions working together under one strategy and includes layers of physical movements, education, incentives, sustained commitment, and communication.
- Better business results with lesser sick leaves
Healthy employees are a key to a company’s productivity and performance. They do not use sick days and can provide a huge turnover, which is a costly issue for companies. Studies have shown that billions are lost due to obesity problems of employees in U.S. annually. Overweight problems make employees miss an estimated 450 million excess work days compared to fit workers that cost American businesses in billions to lost productivity.
As per a recent study conducted by Harvard University, for every dollar that a company spends on corporate wellness programs, there is a drop of $2.73 on absenteeism related costs incurred by a company. Employee wellness is regarded as a high return on investment for employers because of increasing health care costs. Every dollar invested in employee wellness program brings a greater return on reduced health care cost and lower absenteeism cost.
A recent Rand study, which examined 10 years of data from a Fortune 100 employer’s wellness program, compared the different components of workplace wellness programs, including health-risk assessments, fitness-and-diet components, and overall lifestyle management. It was found that when compared against the lifestyle management component, disease management delivered 86% of the hard health care costs savings, generating $136 in savings per member, per month and a 30% reduction in hospital admissions. This study, along with a six-year study of more than 67,000 PepsiCo employees, posed the question: do workplace wellness programs save employers money? If so, what type of wellness program has the biggest impact on saving employers money? Both studies found that returns vary depending on which part of the program is looked at. In line with the Harvard research previously mentioned, the study of the PepsiCo company found that helping employees manage chronic illnesses saved $3.78 in medical costs for every dollar invested in the effort. Mostly because it cut the number and length of hospital stays, disease management accounted for about 87% of PepsiCo’s total cost savings, even though only about 13% of employees participated. Essentially, the answer to what type of program has the greatest impact on saving employers money is the one that prevents at-risk employees from becoming ill and help chronically ill employees stabilize their conditions. For example, a program that preempts 25 unnecessary emergency department visits can easily save $50,000; while preventing four inpatient stays can save at least $100,000. Savings like these are not unrealistic for a 2,000 employee company.
With that being said, you by now must be convinced about the usefulness of corporate wellness programs. Yes? How would you do it?
How To Adopt A Successful Corporate Wellness Program?
Here are a few corporate wellness programs that you might adopt depending on your requirements and preferences.
- A health conscious and nutrition program
The work environment should have a hygienic vending machine and cafeteria items to motivate healthy behavior on a regular basis. A supportive corporate culture is marked by company cafeterias with abundant healthy food which is specifically labeled and tastefully made. Nutritional counseling sessions should also be a part of the corporate goal.
Providing once a week nutritious lunch for employees participating in the company health plan is a wonderful method to augment healthy consuming. Besides, rewarding the employees for their efforts, offering free and healthy food would also boost their latest healthy lifestyle.
Programs like biometric and cholesterol screenings and flu shots in the office place can safeguard against the dangers of common and yet risky health problems like diabetes and coronary ailments. You might also choose to provide guidance on sleep management to assist employees to balance their life both at daytime and night. Making employees receive incentives like insurance premium discounts for contributing in the corporate wellness programs that includes consistent, preventative medical appointments helps in their lifestyle management immensely. Extending free health screenings and health risk evaluations help the employees to comprehend better their health status and its improvement.
- Making it easy for employees to exercise
You might also offer cost-free on-site health clubs or aerobics schedules to be used during lunchtime sessions or after work. Offering cost-free or discounted fitness club memberships to a local fitness center is a great way to make the employees exercise. Even if the fitness club is on or off-site, sanctioning the workforce to use the facility during work schedule such as at the time of lunch break will increase the chances of their exercising.
You can also offer standing desks to workers as standing boosts energy and the blood flow, besides ramping up the metabolism. Building a corporation goal like walking collectively for a few miles promotes team building. Incorporate various movement moments all through the day for your team. This could be a walk to the meeting room for discussing projects or an inspiring moment where all members get up and jump rope for ten minutes. Think about including
everything that keeps your team in motion.
Installation of showers for employees who bike to work or exercise during lunch breaks will help to rejuvenate them and work energetically. Extending incentives like gift cards, achievement certificates and a day off work can help to boost participation levels.
Weight loss management at the workplace can be increased by offering free yoga or Zumba classes or personal workouts onsite at a close facility for greater fitness opportunity.
The online retailer firm, Zappos, is one such example which offers perks like gym memberships, cost-free fitness classes, and marathon reimbursements.
- Functional ergonomics
Redesigning workspace through design options helps to motivate activity like a desk outfitted with an exercise ball in place of a chair, treadmill or standing workstations, or anti-fatigue mats for workers to stand on while working. The concept of ergonomic telephone headsets and keyboards and handheld devices, wobble boards are all way to integrate fitness. Implementing such small alterations to the workplace impact the fitness mindset of the employees from the moment they reach their workstations and gets instilled in their behavior.
The mission of an ergonomic program in an industry should be to make the workplace more adaptive to a particular worker based on the job description and task performance and the physical makeover of the employee executing those tasks. This will minimize back injuries and back pain through better body mechanics and reduce the risks linked with continuous sitting in an office chair like neck strain, upper back pain and leg pain.
- Massage therapy
What could be a better way to unwind than with a massage? You might choose to provide onsite chair massage to employees once a week or twice a month. Another option is providing wellness funds every month to your employees for spending at their desired wellness or beauty spots where they can have their favorite massages or haircuts or even cooking classes is a great idea.
Massage care plays a vital role in your health regimen and helps to decrease adhesion build up from repetitive stress and reduces inflammation after exercise. Massage helps to overcome stress. It can hugely decrease systolic and diastolic blood pressure and boost neurotransmitters linked with reducing anxiety and lower hormones associated with hiking anxiety.
- Chiropractic benefits
Offering Chiropractic programs to your employees that are customized according to their needs can be a great corporate wellness program. The skilled and talented workforce is driven towards and more likely to remain in a company that takes a vested interest in their overall health. By implementing such programs, you can reveal a commitment level to your employees that they have never probably seen before. Chiropractors are the experts in musculoskeletal injuries which is the most common injury at the workplace.
A chiropractic program can optimize your employee’s body to prevent injury and disorders as well as guide the employees in their nutrition or exercise programs to help employees reach their optimal health levels. Healthcare is definitely more than pills and should target care that treats the cause not just the symptoms. Many companies are bring on massage, acupuncture and chiropractic therapy in house to their employees.
- A great health insurance benefit
Employers interested in wellness should also focus on whether their plans offer charge-less or low-cost preventative care and whether it provides doctors appointment and medical care easily. If these strategies are not put into place, then the rest of their wellness goals have no meaning.
Over to You
Before you even think that you cannot afford additional perks for your employees, always give a thought to corporate wellness as a cost reduction strategy. Remember that a healthy workforce will save your organization money through high productivity, performance and less turnover.
What are your views on this? What corporate wellness programs does your organization offer? If you are interested in bringing a custom wellness program to your company click here and fill out the inquiry and we will get set up a meeting with you.
