According to National Coalition on Health Care Average NCHC health cost for an employer sponsored health plan is over $9000.Employee Wellness Programs are so important in a cooperate,it doesn't matter how big or small the scale,it one of the essential element for the success and failure of a company,and it is playing key role in the long-term viability of all businesses.
Let me pause for awhile in posting the important of wellness program for employee . Let's have a short talk about the risk and damage awaits for all those company who just" not so sensitive"about the wellness program.Bear this in mind ,Cooperate Employee Wellness Programs have been proven to reduce health care costs,and the workers or employee are always an asset of a company,a good and healthy worker indirectly resulting in improved productivity.
Research has also shown that even it might increase the overall production cost,it actually bring a positive Return-on-Investment ROI making them a benefit that costs more to avoid than to provide.
Check out the statistic and quotes below:
“Considering that 59% of next year’s medical costs come from this year’s low cost population, it’s vital to provide the right mix of wellness programs targeted to the low-to-moderate risk populations”[1]
” In an environment in which health care costs are skyrocketing, the sensible approach is to reduce the need for care, and the most powerful way to accomplish this is by focusing on evidence-based prevention. However, this will only succeed if spending on prevention is considered a priority rather than discretionary and only if incentives are realigned.”[2]
“Wellness programs are now a standard workplace benefit as employers recognize the need to invest in initiatives that help employees to better manage their heath given that health care costs continue to soar. Employers should measure the
programs as a suite of offerings, as opposed to individual initiatives which is essential to understanding the true impact of an employer’s investment.”[3]
“We need to move from illness to wellness. Business will have to invest in wellness. There is no choice. It’s not philanthropy. It’s heightened self-interest.”[4]
A study shows a positive correlation between reducing employee health risks and enhancing productivity. More than 770,000 employees in 106 companies participated in the study.
Employees who had none of the eight assessed health risks had a productivity loss of 3% while those with eight health risks had a 24% productivity loss. Data was taken from employee’s health risk assessment.
Translated into dollars, on average, in this study, employees with low health risks cost their employer $1,472 per year in lost productivity compared to employees with three health risks who cost the company $5,952 in lost productivity. Researchers estimated, that if 100 employees with three health risks each eradicated one risk factor, the employer would gain $149,400 in productivity.[5]
>Employers need to create safe work environments for employee,improve employee health and implement strategies that reduce medical costs as well as increase employee morale and on-the-job efficiency. In fact not only the management side have to be taken full responsibility for the wellness and hearth for their worker,the worker or employee himself also need to be aware the important and have some basis concepts about personal wellness .
Sad to say, there are only limited of company especially medium small enterprise are lack of such programs to the employee,one of the reason is the downturn in the economy, it seems like most corporations are shifting their cost and mainly focus on the finance crisis ,and when it comes to employee benefits and compensation,it like secondary since it don't bring any benefit on the paper .
Not only lack of wellness care, the salary or the compensation is very low. Besides, majority of them will required workers to work overtime time in the poor working environment.Unemployment rate is high and finding new job is not easy,for this reason ,people tend to stay even there are in the extremely poor working environment without any wellness care.
In connection to this, those who have scale, qualification and experts will try their luck to get their job somewhere. In China, Japan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Abu dhabi, Kuwait, Dubai, Dammam, Doha, Qatar and sometimes in Canada but quiet limited in US. This means that the US Government have more awareness on the employee wellness programs issue compare to others countries.
According to the Wellness Councils of America (welcoa.org), more than 81% of businesses with 50 or more employees have some form of health promotion program -- the number is above average but there are space to improve.The most popular wellness program to employee being exercise, stop-smoking classes, back care programs, and stress management. Most employers are offering wellness programs to offset the rising costs of health care.
Many business leaders continue to ask themselves how to control massive increases in annual insurance premiums and health care costs?the answer is having a Corporate Wellness Programs,spend some money invest on your workers.There are bunch of advisers to give out their professional opinion and quotes on setting up a employer wellness programs and employee wellness programs.
In times like these, it’s critical for everyone of us to work together and work hard for better tomorrow.
The Entire Corporate Wellness Program Quote Request consists of three parts,depends on the sizes of the cooperate,decision maker or manager will always have the flexibility on which wellness programs will work best for the company.
These are some elements when conducting a Corporate Wellness Program:
1.How many employees does the company you represent have?
2.What are your interests?For instant; Health Screening,Employee Training/Education Programs,Online Health Management,Fitness Center Management,Health Fairs,HRA (health risk assessment) Questionnaires.etc.For more wellness programs check out at the bottom of this post.dd
3.How much money you can spend in a Wellness Program?
You can always Looking for Corporate Wellness Companies to manage your corporate wellness programs. Yes not to confuse you but there are numbers of resources and company running these type of service. You can ask for the Free Corporate Wellness Proposals.
On coming post we will try to provide you with a listing of some of the leading corporate wellness companies and wellness vendors,clients these programs including corporate wellness companies, employers, insurance companies, insurance agents, Third-Party Administrators, Employee Assistance Program providers, affinity groups, public sector groups and more.
Corporate Wellness Programs and Services:
- Health Risk Assessments,
- Employee Health Screening and Biometric Testing,
- Wellness Coach / Health Coach Programs,
- Employee Wellness Newsletters, Custom Wellness Programs,
- Corporate Wellness Incentive Plans,
- Points-based Tracking Systems,
- Gym Discounts,
- Childcare center.
- ETC...
Sources and Quotes:
- Todd Spaulding, MBA and Michael Rosen, MD in “Managing Wellness Programs in a Down Economy” OptumHealth Culture of Health Institute January 2010
- ACOEM Committee on Health, Productivity and Disability Management, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, May 2009
- Sunit Patel, Senior Vice President of Fidelity as reported in Employee Benefit News, February 2010 in an article on a survey conducted by Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health.
- Excerpt from the Executive Summary of the World Economic Forum 2009
- Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, April 2009
