As a business owner, you probably understand how your employees’ health can affect your company’s bottom line. You may not know, however, how much impact fewer sick days and higher employee morale can have on your cost of labor.
Workplace wellness programs like those offered here at BayPoint Benefits will help your company in these ways:
- Reduced Absenteeism. Healthier employees get sick less, saving costs not only in paid sick leave, but also in the temporary help, re-scheduling time, and lost business resulting from prolonged absence. A healthy employee will also influence his or her dependents, thus reducing time off needed to care for sick family members.
- Improved Productivity. Healthier employees work longer hours with greater focus. This seems obvious, right? But small improvements make a big difference over time. Just one hour of extra productivity per day adds the equivalent of nearly one full week of work – every month.
- Improved Employee Morale and Retention. Healthier employees are also more loyal. A company-sponsored program sends a message that the your care about your employees’ welfare.
You don’t need a huge upfront investment to get a good ROI on your wellness programs. For example, one company found that installing a hand sanitizer dispenser in the bathrooms and near doors cut down employee sickness days by 50%. Not only that, but fewer employees showing up to work sick meant a lower spread of sickness among employees. Staying healthy reinforces itself.
In another study on company vending machines, swapping junk food for sandwiches and low calorie vegetable and fruit snacks, and replacing sodas with bottled water and milk, significantly improved worker morale and performance by cutting out sugar highs and lows. The cost to the employer? Nothing, save for a few grumbles from some sweet-toothed employees.
Offering free clinics and screenings proved useful to another business. A diabetic screening revealed that a significant number of employees were diabetic or pre-diabetic, and encouraged these employees to adopt a healthier diet and life style. Another tool that employers can use is a subsidized or partially subsidized exercise program. Smoking cessation programs, in addition to creating a smoke-free company environment, will pay added dividends on an employer’s investment.
A wellness program is also a valuable resource in reducing insurance and medical costs for both employee and employer. Despite the fact that the U.S. spends more on health care than any other industrialized nation, U.S. citizens are not any healthier; in fact, studies have shown they may be among the unhealthiest people in the world. Incredibly, preventable chronic illnesses account for approximately 80 percent of illnesses and up to 90 percent of all health care costs.[1]
What this means is that money and pills are not the instant cure – a healthier lifestyle is the answer. Prevention is the key, and wellness programs are the vehicle to saving on health care costs for both you and your employees.
[1] http://www.wellnessproposals.com/workplace-wellness-programs.htm Retrieved October 27, 2011
