I’m trying to get a wellness program going in our company but I can’t seem to get top management to “get it.” Can you help out by outlining why wellness is important— something even our VPs can understand?
— Stephen P., Manager of People, San Francisco
Actually, the wellness agenda is surprisingly uncluttered. Let me show you how to break it down for senior management. Start by asking them a simple question: “Why do people die?”
The answer is really not as complex as people might think. Forty percent of Americans die of cardiovascular disease, primarily from a heart attack or stroke. So, almost half of us die from clogged or broken blood vessels, and 90 percent of those deaths occur at a younger age than necessary. The process that leads to cardiovascular illness and death often starts surprisingly early in life. Many teenagers already have the beginnings of what will become coronary artery disease—so it’s never too early to become interested in wellness.
In fact, the earlier you start a wellness intervention, the more effective it is. The wellness agenda is dominated by cardiovascular prevention, and we’ve made a lot of progress in this respect, mainly because we now know the risk factors that cause cardiovascular disease, and we’re getting a lot better at controlling those factors. The main risk factors that matter in workplace wellness programs are smoking, elevated cholesterol, diabetes, hypertension, and lack of physical exercise. Depending on their severity, each of these factors has the potential to increase cardiovascular death by up to 50 percent. For example, if a person regularly exercises for decades, he or she can reduce the risk of cardiovascular death by 50 percent, and if a person is excellent on all of the risk factors, it’s very unlikely that he or she will die of cardiovascular disease.
But, the benefits of cardiovascular wellness go far beyond living longer. Cardiovascular wellness also helps people to live better, thus increasing the quality, not just the quantity, of life.
You Forget What It’s Like to Feel Good
When you’re young, feeling good is free, and you can mistreat your body and still feel happy and energetic. As the years pass, this situation changes, but it changes so slowly that most people hardly notice it. They actually forget what it’s like to truly feel good. So, as you age, if you want to continue to feel good, you’ve got to earn it. The older you are, the more important it is to try to become addicted to exercise.
Steadily increasing joint discomfort, which often starts around age 50, also decreases a person’s quality of life. Exercise, especially yoga, helps alleviate this problem. In fact, yoga can be as effective as drug therapy for joint discomfort. Musculoskeletal discomfort often impacts employees’ work productivity, especially that of office workers.
Depression, which is very common, also significantly impacts quality and quantity of life and affects work productivity. Exercise, again, is as effective as drug therapy for depression.
Cardiovascular wellness is good for your brain and your personality, and that has a lot of relevance for employers. You can knock out the largest source of death and a large percentage of age-related illness and decline by encouraging cardiovascular wellness among your employees.
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What’s In It for Employers?
When you talk to senior management about the need to implement a wellness program, consider taking a capitalistic approach and talk about saving and spending money. Wellness can make employees more productive and less expensive. Studies have shown that workplace wellness programs show returns on investments of $2 to $5 saved per $1 spent. By encouraging employees to improve their overall wellness, employers can anticipate small improvements in one or more of the following areas: reduced absenteeism, increased productivity, increased loyalty, better job satisfaction, and decreased healthcare costs. In the end, these improvements result from a culture of wellness and contribute favorably to the overall culture of the organization.
Setting Up a Program
You’ve gotten upper management on board, so now how should you proceed? Workplace wellness programs, which may vary from basic to comprehensive, generally focus primarily on the prevention of illness, decline, and death from cardiovascular disease and cancer. Secondarily, they may also address other issues, such as adequate sleep, workplace safety, and drug and alcohol use. When deciding what type of program to implement, employers should consider the size and stability of the workforce. Employers with a large workforce should have a comprehensive program for their employees. Stability—which relates to pay scale, because there tends to be less turnover among higher-paid employees—is an important business consideration when setting up a program. The longer employees stay with the company, the more important wellness is to profitability and the more successful the wellness interventions become.
Here are examples of components of workplace wellness programs:
on-site aerobic and weight-training equipment
- subsidized gym memberships
- individualized wellness counseling
- smoking-cessation groups
- annual health fairs that include blood pressure and cholesterol screenings
- walking programs
- weight-loss support groups
- smoke-free facilities, including the grounds and parking lot
By setting up a workplace wellness program, employers can help employees live happier, more energetic lives—and be more productive on the job.
W. Smith Chandler, MD, SPHR, is a board certified physician in Occupational Medicine and a certified senior professional in human resources from Tidewater, Virginia.