The wellness revolution is here and my question to you is, "Are you in it?"
The term wellness is very broad and that is the part of wellness I don't think is helpful to our society. In some cases it brings to mind earthy people dimming the lights in their homes and lighting candles while listening to new age music while they meditate while doing yoga. THAT is not what you are looking for as a business owner or manager. In the stricter sense of the term you are looking for a program that would be more along the lines of healthcare fitness.
In many cases in wellness such as the example I gave above you may have someone proclaim that this activity does wonders for their stress levels and helps them to function better on a day to day basis. The problem is the results from activities such as that are unmeasureable but more anectodotal. Afterall how can you physically measure, "I feel good" ?
As a business owner or manager you can only afford to implement programs that have a proven strategy with proven and measurable results. In this way you can gauge the progress of your workforce while seeing positive and dramatic changes to your bottom line.
I hope you have a few minutes to spend here because you will find some very usable information about wellness on this site that you can use in your business. These statistics are eye opening and are available because of proven and measurable programs such as the ones we use at Total Healthcare Fitness.
I hope you find this information helpful to improving your company's way of doing business.
Reduced Absenteeism and Disability Time:
On average, frequent exercisers were absent from work only 2.11 days per year compared to 3.06 days for inactive individuals. Researchers believe that exercise boosts the immune system and increase strength thus resulting in fewer incidences of absenteeism due to sickness or injury.
Coors Beer:
As a result of implementing LifeCheck, a special wellness program for high risk employees, Coors saved over $2.3 million in lost wages due to absenteeism, and $1.9 million in rehabilitation costs and cost avoidance.
Johnson & Johnson
Watched its absenteeism rate fall by 15% within two years of introducing its corporate fitness / wellness program; after three years, hospital costs for the firm had fallen by 34%.
DuPont
Experienced a 14% decline in disability days over the course of 24 months. Savings due to lower disability costs offset the wellness program in the first year and provided a return of $2.05 for every dollar invested.
Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company of Newark, New Jersey
Showed that workers who exercise miss 40% fewer workdays that those who don’t.
Subaru Isuzu Automotive
By incorporating physical conditioning, work hardening strength training and flexibility programs into the worker’s daily schedule, they were able to save an estimated 35% on rehabilitation costs.
Reduced Employee Turnover Rate
Healthy employees are happy employees. And happy workers almost always turn out to be faithful, long term employees. So the healthier and happier the workforce, the less a company has to spend on hiring and training new personnel. The basis for creating a healthy work force, of course is a well-conceived and well – promoted wellness program.
Tenneco
Tenneco has found that employees who participated in its corporate wellness / fitness program were 13% less likely to leave the company than those who did not.
Canada Life Assurance Company of Toronto
In the first year, the annual employee – turnover rate for the wellness / fitness program participants was 1.8% compared to the company wide average of 18%.
Toronto Life Assurance
T.L.A. has found that employee turnover during a 10 month period was substantially lower for fitness program participants than for non participants – i.e. 1.5% versus 15%
Asea Brown Boveri – parent company of Combustion Engineering
The corporate wellness / fitness program has helped retain employees who might have otherwise left. They observed less sickness and absenteeism and a definite pickup in employee morale.
Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance co.
The wellness / fitness program has produced tangible benefits such as improved productivity, reduced worker’s comp rates, improved employee morale and lower turnover rates.
Canada Life 10
Heart attacks are expensive for corporations. Companies pay for lost time due to premature death, retraining, sickness, and bereavement. The prevention of just one heart attack in one key employee would cover the cost of an entire year of an employee fitness / wellness program.
Reduced Costs and Medical Claims
The most obvious benefit of a corporate wellness / fitness program is that it allows companies to reduce their overall healthcare costs, in part by reducing the total number of medical claims that they have to field each year. The U.S. Surgeon General reported that 75% of all illnesses can be attributed to lifestyle related causes, and that 53% of America’s population is “inactive”. What both businesses and the population-at-large needs is a fitness based wellness program.
Thousands of studies confirm that regular exercise has a protective effect against a wide variety of illnesses and diseases. And it only stands to reason that, the more a business can help employees avoid illness, disease, and injury, the more it can save on healthcare costs each year.
The Canada Life Assurance Company
CLAC compared its per-capita medical claims with those of a comparable insurance company, but one that, unlike CLAC, did not provide a wellness / fitness program for its employees. The study found that the other insurance company watched its per-capita medical expenses climb from $170 to $229 (Canadian currency) while CLAC’s per-capita costs remained constant at $170.
GE Aircraft
During an analysis of the employees of GEA indicated that medical claims submitted by the company’s fitness center members decreased by 27% while claims made by nonmembers actually rose by 17%.
Personal Stats by Fortune Magazine
Experts estimate that an individual can save $1200 – 1400 a year by lowering their cholesterol, $1300 by quitting smoking, and $400 by exercising regularly, and $250 by losing excess bodyweight.
The City of Birmingham Alabama
The city was able to keep its healthcare costs to 21% below the state average over a five year period as a result of a comprehensive health and wellness promotion.
Westinghouse Electronic Assembly Plant
Workers who participated in the worksite fitness and wellness program in College Station, Texas, cost the firm approximately $1,715 LESS than workers who did not.
Johnson & Johnson
Employees who participated in the second year of J&J’s Live for Life health promotion program cost the company 17% less in hospital expenses than those who did not; employees who participated in the third year of the program cost the company 34% less.
Observations worth noting
“For small business owners who often measure profits in thousands – not millions – of dollars, the net effect of an employee wellness program could mean the difference between profit and loss”.
William M. Kizer, Chairman, Central States Indemnity, Well Workplace Gold, Founding Chairman, Wellness Councils of America, “Corporate wellness Makes a Bottom-Line Impact” Wellness Councils of America.
“Companies can now see that not only can they cut sick days and care costs by getting employees physically fit, but they can train employees’ bodies and minds to perform better in everyday situations.”
Dr. Jack Groppel, LGE Sport Science, Sales and Marketing Management
“Wellness, if done carefully and based on sound program strategies, can make significant inroads in reducing selected health risk prevalence and help people in most working populations and will in fact produce significant economic benefit to the organization involved.” Larry S. Chapman, MPH, Chairman, Summex Corporation, “Corporate Wellness Makes A Bottom-Line Impact”, Wellness Councils of America
“The evidence pointing to the success of wellness / fitness programs in improving employee health practices, reducing medical and disability costs, and improving productivity is indisputable.”
Kenneth R. Pelletier, Ph.D. American Journal of Health Promotion
Profit Return on Investment
Because of financial concerns, companies often struggle with the decision to invest in a wellness / fitness program for their employees. But no decision maker would deny that “one has to spend money to make money,” as the familiar saying goes. Once the initial investment is made, the program will immediately begin paying for itself – provided that it’s properly promoted and maintained – and, eventually, realize concrete savings for the company.
Bank of America
BOA realized a return of $6 for every $1 spent on its health promotion program
Mesa Petroleum
A two year study revealed that its corporate fitness / wellness program had a benefit to cost ratio of $1.07
PepsiCo
PepsiCo found that its corporate wellness / fitness program produced a 300% return on investment – that is, $3 for every $1 invested.
Prudential Life Insurance Company
PLIC reported a benefit – to – cost ratio of $1.91 for its fitness / wellness program.
DuPont
Over a six year period their fitness / wellness program had a return of $2.05 for every $1 invested.
New York Telephone
NYT saw a $1.95 for every $1 spent on its corporate fitness / wellness program.
The Coors Brewing Company
In 1990 they company had a return of $6.15 for every $1 invested in its corporate wellness program; today its annual returns range from $1.24 to $8.33.
How will your company compare in these statistics? That depends on what you do now and how much you wish to invest into a corporate wellness and healthcare fitness program. And of course the ONLY provider of these services in south central Kentucky is Total Healthcare Fitness and J.R.Smith.
Contact info:
J.R.Smith
606-271-0981
totalhealthcarefitness@hotmail.com
bodyfit1@gmail.com
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