The Corporate Wellness Plan management world is evolving rapidly. Each month, there are new research findings that support the premise that Corporate Wellness Programs and disease management have a long-term impact on healthcare costs. Many large companies that started Corporate Wellness Programs three to five years ago are showing savings in health, disability, and workers compensation costs. Small to mid-size companies are watching all this and wondering where to start with wellness.

Getting upper management support and budget approval is one of the challenges at the beginning of a Corporate Wellness Program. This is the case because Corporate Wellness Programs can be expensive, averaging $150-300 per worker per year in large companies. The majority of of the savings are not realized for a number of years. This long-term investing is hard for companies on the move.

The key to success for Corporate Wellness Programs is to take a strategic approach. Here are ten steps to consider when starting a Corporate Wellness Program.

1. Start with upper management. Without upper management support, a health promotion strategy can fall flat. Start with the health of your executive team and discover your wellness champions at the top of the corporation.
2. Assess the problem. Look at your healthcare claims and analyze the trends. Which conditions are driving your medical, disability, and workers’ compensation claims and which are modifiable? What’s worked and what hasn’t thus far? What is the long-term impact of doing nothing?
3. Hold an initial wellness meeting. Invite your primary stakeholders both inside and outside the corporation. Ask your broker to facilitate the meeting and invite primary health vendors including health, disability, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), fitness, and occupational nursing. Review claims and utilization data and identify primary areas of concern. Look at current offerings and see how they can be tailored to the needs of the population.
4. Look at both healthy and unhealthy workers. Since 85% of claims are usually attributed to 15% of claimants, it is essential to reach those with the most costly conditions while also reaching individuals who are at risk for developing preventable diseases in the future. Voluntary Corporate Wellness Programs such as lunch and learns wellness seminars miss many of the individuals who need them most. Look at initiatives that are population-wide or target intact workgroups. Wellness incentives help but do not motivate everyone.
5. Set short-term goals for the Corporate Wellness Programs. Set some realistic short-term goals based on your primary areas of concern. Are there any plan design changes that could have an immediate impact on spending? Are there some programmatic actions that could have immediate results?
6. Determine what workers are thinking. Hold some focus groups to determine where individuals are with wellness. What’s working? What isn’t? How much interest do individuals have in the Corporate Wellness Programs? What obstacles and barriers are workers experiencing when they try to change behavior?
7. Make sure you have a high-impact Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Your first wellness dollars should go into upgrading your Employee Assistance Program (EAP). A highly utilized Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide a foundation for all of your future wellness programs. A good Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a trusted link to the hearts and minds of workers. At no additional cost, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide needed follow-up coaching and personal attention for workers who are working on modifiable health behaviors or involved in disease management initiatives. Nutritionists, fitness, pregnancy, and stress management specialists are all part of a high-value Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
8. Set three to five year goals for healthcare savings and measure them. Get help from your broker and insurance carrier help you on long-term goals for your health, disability, and workers compensation plans. Establish program metrics that will help you to measure return on investment (ROI). Go beyond participation rates, completion rates and program satisfaction. Measure changes in readiness, changes in behavior, and changes in risk factors. Establish rigorous methods to measure healthcare savings over the long term.
9. Set goals for organizational health. Look at the more intangible benefits of a Corporate Wellness Program and quantify them whenever possible. Include worker turnover rates, cost of new hires, worker morale, benefit satisfaction data, and employer of choice issues in setting goals. Establish ways to measure success in these areas.
10. Add specifics to your short and long-term plan. Include a Corporate Wellness Plan strategy, a communication strategy, and a Corporate Wellness Plan incentive strategy that will fit with your organization culture. Focus on integration of related components along a health continuum with communications that are focused, simple, and human. Establish a budget that includes primary components such as consumer education, health promotion, Health Risk Assessments, and regular biometric screens.

Employers can also benefit from Corporate Wellness Programs. According to recent research, employers’ benefits are:

• Enhanced recruitment and retention of healthy workers
• Reduced healthcare costs
• Decreased rates of illness and injuries
• Reduced worker rates of absence
• Enhanced worker relations and morale
• Improved productivity

A United States Department of Health and Human Services report revealed that at worksites with physical activity initiatives as components of their Corporate Wellness Programs have:

• Reduced healthcare costs by 20 to 55%
• Reduced short-term sick leave by six to 32%
• Raised productivity by two to 52%

Thanks to modern medicine, life expectancy for Americans has continually improved. How much we enjoy these additional years, however, depends greatly on how we have lived our lives. If our quality of life is to remain high so that we can fully enjoy these extra years, we must practice good eating habits, be active and refrain from using tobacco products.

Furthermore, stress, distractions and the pressures of the job can take its toll on the worker, which makes it important that a Corporate Wellness Plan is implemented. Today, all across America, Canada, Europe and Asia, top Corporate Wellness Programs are being used to help enhance worker conditions at work and reduce the cost of worker healthcare.

Some of the top Corporate Wellness Programs currently in use today include:

Health Risk Assessments

Health Risk Assessments is a top Corporate Wellness Plan currently in use globally. Organizations that begin it determine the safety and health concerns of workers by the assessment of appropriateness of the facilities and equipment against the needs of the workers.

It can, for example, guide the corporation into determining how much air quality within an office room affects the users and then help the assessment team to come up with the measures necessary to correct the problem. Health Risk Assessments can also evaluate the level of exposure workers have to certain hazardous or dangerous materials and practices.

Immunizations

This isn’t always practiced in every country since there are regions where government sponsored immunization shots are available. However, it has also become an important component of the top Corporate Wellness Programs in many companies in North America.

Immunization, flu shots, such as those used to combat flu, for example, are offered to workers for free.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) consist of a wide variety of services. It can range from providing educational resources to workers regarding health issues to sponsoring health services and medical care. In many companies, medical and insurance have also become a staple part of their benefits system.

Weight Management Programs

This is another Corporate Wellness Plan that companies use, particularly those that offer in-house commissary or cafeteria services. Instead of serving richer, high-calorie fare, cafeterias offer options for a healthier diet, usually in the form of low-calorie foods and sugar substitutes.

Employee Wellness Newsletters – Health Education Programs

One of the top Corporate Wellness Programs that companies can begin is a self-powered tool using a newsletter to promote wellness, coupled with a visible campaign. The campaign may be done periodically and focus on a specific topic, such as tobacco use hazards, cancer, stress, carpal tunnel syndrome, safety in the worksite, etc.

The newsletter in itself can be an effective way to deliver information to workers or members of an corporation but it is far from perfect. Some workers, for example, may not read the newsletter in its entirety or even pay attention to it. If the issues outlined in the newsletter are promoted through an active and highly visible campaign, it will be easier to maximize positive results.

Physical Fitness and Exercise Programs

Another top health promotion program for companies is one that involves physical activities. Companies often sponsor physical fitness-related events such as marathons and corporation sports initiatives to promote workers to remain fit or lose excess weight. In mid- to large-sized companies, companies may even pay for gym memberships or in-house physical fitness facilities.

Corporate Wellness Plan Incentives

Some of the top Corporate Wellness Programs implemented by companies involve incentive rewards. This involves corporation-sponsored initiatives that reward workers for achieving specific wellness goals. Participation in health campaigns and signing up for Corporate Wellness Programs are two of the most commonly rewarded schemes. Rewards can range from special recognitions to points (for bigger rewards) to specific gifts. In a few cases, cash may also be used.

However, incentive systems have had mixed reactions and levels of success. But it continues to be one of the top choices among companies who are willing to modify it in order to fit their unique needs.

Group Activities

In many companies, companies take advantage of peer pressure in order to encourage workers to take part in Corporate Wellness Programs. This is currently one of the favorite worker Corporate Wellness Programs currently in use today and growing in popularity. Peer pressure is often leveraged to help promote competitions and to persuade workers to be active in corporation-sponsored health fairs.

Corporate Wellness Programs: The Good

• A sampling of return on investment (ROI) for Corporate Wellness Programs: Bank of America: 600%; General Motors:370%; Pepsico: 300%; Citibank: 465%; and the Washoe County School District leading the pack at a whopping 1,560%. (Campbell,J., Wellness Improvement Experts, www.wellnessimprovementexperts.com, Albuquerque, New Mexico.)
• Companies with Corporate Wellness Programs have realized a 28% reduction in sick leave, a 26% reduction in adjunctive healthcare costs and a 30% reduction in disability and workers compensation costs. (Health Affairs, Volume 21, No.2, March, 2002.)
• The Washoe county School District in Northern Nevada realized a $15.60 return on investment (ROI) for every dollar spent due to a 20% reduction in rates of absence. (Hardy,A. (2005). At the Top Of The Class. WELCOA’s Absolute Advantage Magazine, 5(1), 14-20.)
• Corporate Wellness Programs provide the structure, encouragement, incentives and ongoing support that many individuals need in order to make lifestyle changes.
• Employees also realize returns on their efforts. FiServ, a financial services technology corporation, gave workers who filled out a health risk assessment a significant discount on their medical insurance premium. (Holland, Kelley, The New York Times, July 22, 2007.)

Corporate Wellness Programs: The Bad

The flip side of the argument centers on basic human rights. Do we want/need our employer to tell us to eat our veggies or lose 30 pounds? Some companies are doing just that and at least one lawsuit has resulted because of it.
• Three hundred companies have requested assistance from a national employment and labor law firm to institute more aggressive Corporate Wellness Programs.(Cornwell, Lisa, Associated Press, Albuquerque Journal, September 10,2007.)
• Clarian Health, based in Indianapolis, Will begin lowering worker paychecks by $10.00 for every worker who has a Body Mass Index (BMI) of greater than 29.9 because not enough workers were utilizing their wellness services.(Cornwell, Lisa, Associated Press, Albuquerque Journal, September 10,2007.)
• Scott Rodrigues filed a suit against his prospective employer, Scotts Miracle-Gro, because he believed the corporation’s antitobacco use policy violated his civil rights. The corporation has a policy against hiring workers who smoke and Mr. Rodrigues’drug screen was positive for nicotine.(Holland, Kelley, The New York Times,July 22,2007.)
• worker advocates are concerned that health discrimination may not be covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.(Cornwell, Lisa, Associated Press, Albuquerque Journal, September 10,2007.)

Penalizing workers by hitting them where it hurts the most,their pocketbook, does not appear to be a favorable approach to molding human behavior.
Such tactics may result in increased resentments and retaliation, primarily in the form of rates of absence and presenteeism (decreased productivity on the job.) Voluntary, incentive-based initiatives, such as the one in the Washoe County School District, can and do produce results. A positive attitude on the part of management along with an opportunity for workers to have a stake in the decision-making may yield the greatest dividends to both employer and worker.The motivation and resolve needed to change unhealthy lifestyle habits can best be derived from the basic tenets of encouragement, respect and support.

Stretching initiatives are another effective tool in injury prevention. According to the Best Practices in Manufacturing Web site, Dayton Parts, Inc. (DPI) in Harrisburg, Pa., conducted research that revealed approximately 80% of all manufacturing injuries occurred within the first two hours of each shift. After starting a program that mandated production workers to stretch for 10 to 15 minutes at the beginning of their shifts, they saw a dramatic reduction in injuries.

While the DPI Corporate Wellness Plan costs about $75,000 a year to operate, in conjunction with other corporation initiatives, it has helped bring the annual cost of workers’ compensation from $700,000 to $200,000 per year.6

To help prevent lengthy absences and reduce workers’ compensation claims, Honda instituted a work recovery program. Through the program, workers who have had an injury can work in a modified job—getting better. Employees in the program spend their work days receiving physical conditioning to increase overall fitness, physical therapy to restore functionality, health education and nutrition counseling. The program is based on data that shows fewer work days are lost when an worker stays connected to the work environment.

The Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation, www.ohiobwc.com, provides a “10-Step Business Plan” as a guide for companies in providing Corporate Wellness Programs that aim to reduce injuries. The plan includes information on safety and health initiatives to prevent occurrences of on-the-job accidents, including:

worker involvement – To ensure the success of any Corporate Wellness Program, workers must take part in the safety and health-management process. This can be done through safety and health audits, accident investigations, or by forming safety and health involvement teams, focus groups or committees.

Orientation and training plan – Conduct orientation and training sessions to educate workers on the corporation’s safety policies. These sessions should include procedures for the safe use of machinery and tools, chemical hazards and how to prevent contact or exposure, specific job/task safe practices, and hazard recognition and prevention.

Communication – Open communication keeps workers informed and provides suggestions and feedback on the effectiveness of the Corporate Wellness Program. Through memos, bulletin boards and staff meetings, important health and safety information can be conveyed throughout the organization, keeping all management staff and workers knowledgeable about the corporation’s safe practices.

The corporation plan also outlines incentives for post-injury procedures, including:

Medical treatment and return-to-work practices – arly return-to-work strategies help injured or ill workers return to work in a timely manner. Companies should begin a disability management policy to help injured or ill workers obtain quality medical treatment, making their transition back to work quick and effortless.

Timely notification of claims – Employers should document worksite injuries immediately after they occur and promptly send that documentation to a claims handler. Quickly providing claim information demonstrates care and concern for the injured worker, prevents delays and confusion with the claim process, and reduces the potential for abuse or needless litigation.

Record keeping – Internal documents should be kept to record work-time injuries and to assess the success of the corporation’s safety efforts. Organization audits, surveys and injury or illness reports can all be used to analyze which safety practices and policies have proven successful, and what areas of health and wellness need improvement.

The American Association of Family Physicians’ Web site, www.aafp.org, offers a recommended adult immunization schedule created by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. This schedule, tiered by age and chances of exposure, recommends diphtheria, tetanus, influenza, pneumonococcal, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, measles, mumps and rubella, varicella and meningococcal vaccinations.

Ideas to incorporate prevention and early detection:

• Hold a wellness fair and invite organizations that provide testing services for such conditions as blood pressure, blood iron, cholesterol, body mass index (BMI) and diabetes.
• Offer educational materials about well-baby care and vaccinations.
• Choose healthcare coverage plans that include wellness check-ups and vaccinations.
• Offer onsite mammograms for workers.
• Sponsor onsite flu vaccinations to coincide with flu season.

While stress cannot be eliminated from life, or even from the worksite, coping skills can be developed with relative ease. Stress management skills lead to decreased rates of absence and more effective, more productive workers. Because stress has been shown to contribute to such physical conditions as ulcers, high blood pressure and stroke, stress reduction has a direct impact on improving physical health.

Studies have shown that heart patients who attend stress management initiatives have 42% lower healthcare costs. Other research studies have documented a 50% reduction in medical services use when stress management initiatives are employed. Further, Employee Assistance Program (EAP) experts estimate that 20% of any workforce is affected by personal problems that can influence work performance.

Stress reduction tactics to consider:

• Offer onsite yoga or meditation classes.
• Organize support groups among workers.
• Sponsor stress management classes during the workday.
• Offer an employee assistance program that includes both counseling and referral.
• Offer onsite counseling for workers in the case of a work-related trauma, such as the death of a co-worker.

The old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is particularly relevant to when applied to preventive measures taken during pregnancy, when a few extra ounces of birth weight can save a child’s life. During pregnancy, simple precautions can help avoid catastrophic results; giving up tobacco use, for instance, drastically reduces the risk of miscarriage and pre-term labor.

The March of Dimes reports that if all women took adequate folic acid before conception and during pregnancy, the number of babies born with a neural tube defect could drop by as much as 70%. The physical and emotional benefits of proper prenatal care to a mother and child are underscored by a strong corporation case for offering prenatal wellness benefits. Nationwide’s Chief Medical Director, Dr. Michael Moore, estimates costs to care for one baby delivered prematurely could approach $500,000.

First steps in fostering a prenatal program:

• Invite the March of Dimes to present information about prenatal health at an worker brownbag lunch or breakfast meeting.
• Hold prenatal care information classes for interested workers at lunchtime.
• Offer educational materials about the effects of alcohol, drugs and tobacco use on an unborn child.
• Offer incentives for adopting healthy lifestyles during pregnancy.
• Offer prenatal initiatives and education as part of the corporation healthcare package.

Instances of respiratory diseases, cancer and other illnesses can be decreased through tobacco use cessation efforts. tobacco use cessation initiatives can provide huge opportunities for enhanced health.

The American Cancer Society reports that tobacco use workers cost companies an average of $1,429 per smoker per year in increased healthcare costs over non-tobacco use workers. Implementing a tobacco use cessation program costs an average of $45 per worker per year, saving companies an average of $1,383 per year for each worker who quits tobacco use. Additionally, the American Cancer Society reports that smokers are absent from work 50% more often than nonsmokers. They are also 50% more likely to be hospitalized and have 15% higher disability rates. tobacco use decreases onthe- job productivity as well. Employees who take four 10- minute tobacco use breaks a day work more than a month less per year than workers who don’t take smoke breaks.

<h3>Places to start with tobacco use cessation initiatives: </h3>

1. Establish a corporation policy prohibiting tobacco use anywhere on the property.
2. Offer prompts/posters to support no tobacco use policy.
3. Policy supporting participation in tobacco use cessation activities during duty time (flex-time).
4. Offer counseling through an individual, group, or telephone counseling program onsite.
5. Offer counseling through a health plan sponsored individual, group, or telephone counseling program.
6. Offer cessation medications through medical insurance.