In yesterday’s Advisor, consultant Mari Ryan, CEO and founder of AdvancingWellness, showed how a well-executed wellness program can save your company a great deal on healthcare costs. Today, she shares just how well this has worked for two very different companies.
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Ryan, who recently shared her expertise in a webinar presented by BLR® and HR Hero®, is a certified Worksite Wellness Program consultant and serves as chair of the Board of Directors of the Worksite Wellness Council of Massachusetts.
Sometimes when you’re starting a wellness program and creating awareness of it, the costs can actually go up in the first year, acknowledges Ryan. This is because people are getting engaged with their health plan and utilizing the services you have offered. You have to be patient—it often takes 3 to 5 years to be able to impact healthcare costs. But, your patience will be rewarded.
Need to improve your base pay structure? Start on December 17, 2014, with a new, interactive webinar, How to Design Base Pay Programs: What Works and What Doesn’t. Learn More
Success at Large (and Not-So-Large) Companies
There are many examples of wellness programs that have made an impressive financial impact. The first organization Ryan pointed to was a very large and well-known one—Johnson & Johnson, which has been promoting wellness and health for years among their employees. In an evaluation from 2002 to 2008, the company discovered the following results:
- The average annual, inflation-adjusted growth in total medical expenditures was only 1%—a figure that is 3.7% lower than that of other similar large companies.
- Calculations indicated that their wellness initiatives produced a return on investment (ROI) ranging from $1.88 to $3.92 for every dollar spent.
Next, Ryan turned to a smaller manufacturing organization of about 400 employees called Lincoln Industries. The company has been very committed to their program and has seen astonishing impact since starting their initiatives in the early 2000s:
- Their healthcare costs are less than 59% of the average costs for other consumer-directed health plans in the region.
- In terms of reducing health risk, the company reduced tobacco use from 77% in 2001 to less than 12% today.
- While the company spends a great deal on their wellness program, they see an enormous ROI—$11 for every dollar spent. Ryan makes it clear that this is not typical!
Wellness isn’t the only way to engage and retain top employees—good pay programs help, too! How to get there? Fortunately there’s timely help in the form of BLR’s new webinar—How to Design Base Pay Programs: What Works and What Doesn’t. In just 90 minutes, on December 17, 2014, you’ll learn everything you need to know about building a solid, consistent base pay program to keep your best and most productive employees happy.
Register today for this interactive webinar.
Learn approaches to designing the base pay program that works best for your organization. Join us December 17, 2014, for a new interactive webinar, How to Design Base Pay Programs: What Works and What Doesn’t. Earn 1.5 hours in Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI) Recertification Credit. Register Now
By participating in this interactive webinar, you’ll learn:
- Merit-based pay—how to determine the value of a job, internally and externally
- How to compare your organization’s pay rates to those of similar organizations to stay competitive
- How to ensure the base pay program is equitable, consistent, and well-communicated to the players
- How often and in what manner to communicate to employees about the pay structure
- How to ensure that the organization is rewarding the high performers it doesn’t want to lose
- How to evaluate what an employee brings to the organization for person-based pay—skills, knowledge, qualifications, etc.
- Ensuring the company’s pay program stays within budgetary constraints
- And much more!
Register now for this event risk-free.
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
1:30 to 3:00 p.m. (Eastern)
12:30 to 2:00 p.m. (Central)
11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. (Mountain)
10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. (Pacific)
Approved for Recertification Credit
This program has been approved for 1.5 credit hours toward recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI).
Join us on December 17, 2014—you’ll get the in-depth How to Design Base Pay Programs: What Works and What Doesn’t webinar AND you’ll get all of your particular questions answered by our experts.
Train Your Entire Staff
As with all BLR/HR Hero webinars:
- Train all the staff you can fit around a conference phone.
- Get your (and their) specific phoned-in or e-mailed questions answered in Q&A sessions that follow the presentation.