A majority of Americans agree that lifestyle choices such as smoking and exercising directly affect the cost of their health care, yet 44 percent do not think they should have to pay for health care. What gives?
A recent survey revealed that employees do see a connection between their behavior and their health, and they do understand that they control that connection. Yet they still believe that employers should fund health care even when employees do not take steps toward healthier lifestyles, says Art Carlos, CEO of The Vitality Group.
In fact, 59 percent of respondents in The Vitality Group’s survey indicated that their employer, or their spouse’s employer, should bear some responsibility for paying for health care, and 46 percent said the government should pay some of the costs.
“These results highlight the root cause of the healthcare crisis our nation is currently grappling with,” says Carlos. “We Americans, or rather our lifestyles, lie at the heart of rising medical costs. And the problem will not be solved until we are required to take personal accountability for the way we choose to live.”
Elements of a Healthy Wellness Program
Carlos says an effective wellness program includes certain key elements:
- A link between activities and outcomes
- The ability to customize the program for each individual’s unique set of circumstances and incoming health status
- Significant rewards that will “drive real behavior change”
- Clinical verifiability
- Access to programs such as paid fitness club memberships, subsidized disease management programs, and the availability of on-site or off-site testing centers
Employers should remove the financial burden for employees to engage in wellness programs, Carlos suggests. While it is not necessary for employers to foot the entire cost, employer subsidies clearly make it easier for employees to participate in wellness programs.
In addition, vendors who provide a guaranteed return on investment (ROI) increase the likelihood that employers will fully commit to the program. “Without a guarantee, a vast majority of wellness programs require a leap of faith for employers,” he says.
Corporate wellness programs show great ROI. And, as one expert noted, there’s no downside—even small improvements make a difference. Find out more about BLR’s Workplace Wellness: Healthy Employees, Healthy Families, Healthy ROI.
What to Do
Here are a few of The Vitality Group’s tips for maximizing the ROI of wellness programs:
1. Shop around. “The best programs provide the tools and motivation to make healthy choices, including positive incentives for employees who choose to do the right thing,” says Stuart Slutzky, chief marketing officer of The Vitality Group. Programs should be nondiscriminatory in that their rewards are based on taking positive steps to improve health, no matter where the starting point lies.
2. Go all out. “Either jump in in a meaningful way, or don’t bother,” Carlos says. Taking a casual or limited approach can have two negative results: ineffectiveness and employee cynicism for the program.
3. Understand that change is a continuum. You need a “robust and significant program” to drive employee behavioral change, Carlos says. “Get people from not thinking about change, to thinking about it, to making a decision to taking action, to maintaining that action.”
Time to Get Your Wellness Program Booming?
Well-structured and well-run wellness programs generate ROIs of up to 300 percent—music to management’s ears! But the key words are well-structured and well-run, because poorly structured programs just spin their wheels—no health benefit and no positive ROI, either.
Many readers have told us that BLR’s comprehensive guidebook, Workplace Wellness: Healthy Employees, Healthy Families, Healthy ROI, has helped them get programs up and running that achieve wellness objectives with a great ROI, while avoiding the legal hassles that, these days, seem to attend any worthwhile venture in HR.
Wellness—NO downside! Wellness programs show impressive ROI, so management and employees are happy. And that means HR is happy. Check out BLR’s Workplace Wellness: Healthy Employees, Healthy Families, Healthy ROI. Find out more.
It’s a comprehensive guide that takes you step by step through setting up a program, from convincing management all the way through to creating and implementing a workable plan for your workplace. The guide also includes a vast collection of ready-to-use forms, handouts, and checklists that both structure your program and provide the metrics to prove its effectiveness to management’s satisfaction.
If you’d like to examine Workplace Wellness: Healthy Employees, Healthy Families, Healthy ROI on a no-cost, no-obligation basis for 30 days, we can arrange for you to do so. Let us know and we’ll be happy to set it up.