Does our company need a Wellness Program?

Does your company need a wellness program? It depends on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of asking the question.

Here are some common reasons companies start a corporate wellness programs:

• The high cost of chronic diseases prevalent in the American workforce, and likely your company’s workforce.

  From the company’s perspective the following may be hitting the bottom line hard:

  • insurance plan costs

  • absenteeism costs

  • presenteeism costs

  • retention of employees

• Chronic diseases included are obesity, various cancers, diabetes including Type 2, hypertension, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, respiratory diseases, etc.

• These diseases are costly to the individual in terms of quality of life and longevity.

Here are some common mistakes companies make when launching a wellness program:

• Not asking the employees what they want in a wellness program

• Only making it a short-term priority aka seen by the employees as management’s aloof ‘priority of the month’

• Not leading by example from management or executives

• Not doing a ‘total package’ approach and only offering nutrition education and physical activity incentives.

• Not aligning incentives for participation with incentives that appeal to the employees

The following podcast “Do Company Wellness Programs Work and Do We Need One?” is a 44-minute listen that answers a wide array of questions about this topic, using insightful statistics and case studies. It also explains what most often leads to success or failure with company wellness programs or initiatives.