Worksite Wellness Programs, how effective? Very, if follow these strategies.

Edited From Dr. Steven G. Aldana, The Top 5 Strategies to Enhance the ROI of Worksite Wellness Programs

For worksite wellness programs to actually reduce health care costs employees have to adopt healthy behaviors, keep their health risks low, not fall victim to chronic diseases AND not get laid off, fired, or leave the company. This is one reason flu shots and cancer screenings are cost effective, as they can result in health care savings in a short amount of time and no one has to change behaviors.

Are worksite wellness programs cost effective?

Worksite wellness programs might be able to save money. Employees cost money in healthcare costs, absenteeism, presenteeism, worker’s comp, disability, employee turnover and recruitment.

Some have estimated that 30% of all health care costs are administrative. Which ones can realistically be reduced if your employees have healthy behaviors and few health risks? Wellness programs can reduce preventable chronic diseases and healthier employees will require fewer medications. Only a portion of your health care costs can potentially be impacted by good wellness programs. It is unrealistic to expect wellness programs are going to dramatically lower health care costs.

And, the ROI for wellness is always going to be greater for worksites that are self-insured as they get to keep all the health care money their wellness programs save.

That said, absenteeism is an employee cost caused by stress, personal illness, family needs, entitlement mentality, and personal needs. Clearly wellness programs can reduce stress, they can prevent some types of personal illness and they may be able to change an entitlement attitude because morale may improve. Morale is one of the most valuable and overlooked aspects of worksite wellness programs. Morale affects both absenteeism and productivity of employees.

Enhance the ROI of Worksite Wellness Programs by:

1. Tapping into your Insurance Plan. Most insurance plans have preventive health benefits that are regularly available to your employees. Educate employees to take advantage of their preventive benefits, flu vaccinations and other health screenings.
2. Create a Wellness Benefit. Increase your employee benefit contribution to add wellness initiatives, and then reward those who participate in wellness programs. Non-participants in essence fund wellness programs for those who do participate.
3.  Use the Right Wellness Message: Employees are NOT interested in how their participation affects the company’s bottom line, they are interested in how it can transform their own lives by improving their health. Employees care about what’s in it for them. Use communication that is important to your employees, not the employer. Tell employees how their lives will be better.
4.  Make Use of Free Community Resources: Use the resources in your community and partner with like-minded organizations, eg. American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen, county health departments, health care providers. Wellness grants at times are also available from non-profit organizations and health departments. Many organizations and health care providers are looking for ways to market their services via health fairs, preventive clinics, etc.

The above are all fairly low cost to implement as well as cost effective for the long haul. More high touch, one-on-one health coaching or on-site fitness training may produce improvements in health risks, but are not always justified in an ROI analysis.

 “You get what you pay for” is NOT an accurate assessment of worksite wellness programs. Overkill of unnecessary or underutilized wellness program services does nothing to help employees change, and is a waste of precious wellness funding.

For more information on wellness programs or self-insuring, go to www.smartwomeninvest.com

[Via http://threefishlimit.wordpress.com]