Wellness programs in the last decade have increased in popularity than ever. This can be attributed to the diverse positive impacts they have on the workplace as well as on the employees. Today, wellness programs are common among both medium and small-sized corporations. The programs are in essence included in companies’ benefits packages. The primary objective of the wellness programs is to offer employees social support, incentive tools, privacy as well as some of the strategies they can apply in adopting and maintaining healthy behaviors. Basically, wellness programs have the potentials of lowering health care costs, decreasing employee absenteeism, increase productivity, and raising employee morale. In this manner, workplace wellness programs form part of the success strategies of an organization.
Economic Effects of Preventable Health Conditions
Preventable health conditions are a significant burden in the workplace. To begin with, health issues can lower the productivity of workers since they will tend to take some time off to seek medical attention. The time lost therein cannot be compensated. Basically, preventable health conditions would lead to increased cases of employee absenteeism, reduced employee morale, and generally reduced employee productivity. In addition, the organization will be prompted to pay unnecessary insurance premiums and employee medical claims. The insurance premiums and medical claims therein are at all time high and continue to rise (Mattke et al., 2015). In this manner, the organization will continue to make losses if no significant strategy is implemented to cater for the preventable health conditions.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Effective workplace wellness programs and policies have the potential of reducing health risks. The general health quality of the working population can also be improved in the process. Having a healthy workforce would mean lowered direct costs in terms of insurance premiums and compensation of claims by workers. Further, healthy workforce translates to lowered direct costs when workers do not miss work due to illnesses.
The Business Case for a Health and Wellness Program
In the event that a machine breaks in an assembly line, there is time spared to fix it because productivity is at stake. In the same manner, we can never run machines with established safety hazards because employees can be injured in the process. Employees have unique skills, knowledge, and capabilities and are technically the machines which move the modern working place forward. Today, the workplace is comprised of an unhealthy workforce characterized by obesity, stress, lack of sleep, physical inactivity among others.
Worksite wellness programs are aimed at improving the health of employees focusing primarily on the risk factors such as fitness levels, smoking cessation, and weight loss (Goetzel et al., 2014). These programs are delivered through self-help educational materials, on-site fitness centers, individual counseling, and incentives for participation.
Future Workplace Trends
A number of companies today offer external sources specializing in the design and the administration of wellness programs. This could be attributed to the personal nature of the health of employees. Health and wellness programs are the most effective and proactive tools for combating the ever-increasing healthcare costs and declining employee health as well as productivity (Abdullah & Lee, 2012).
In essence, wellness intervention programs have the potential of reducing long term health care costs, especially with preventable health conditions. Further, sedentary people can become more active and healthy when offered incentives and proper tools. In this manner, employers should no longer wait on the sidelines with the hope that the health of employees can improve. It is becoming a necessary issue for employers to invest more in wellness programs to help employees maintain healthier lifestyles.
References
Abdullah, D. N. M. A., & Lee, O. Y. (2012). Effects of wellness programs on job satisfaction, stress and absenteeism between two groups of employees (attended and not attended). Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences , 65 , 479-484.
Goetzel, R. Z., Henke, R. M., Tabrizi, M., Pelletier, K. R., Loeppke, R., Ballard, D. W., ... & Serxner, S. (2014). Do workplace health promotion (wellness) programs work?. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine , 56 (9), 927-934.
Mattke, S., Liu, H., Caloyeras, J., Huang, C. Y., Van Busum, K. R., Khodyakov, D., & Shier, V. (2013). Workplace wellness programs study. Rand Health Quarterly , 3 (2).
