Doing Well by Making Well: The Impact of Corporate Wellness Programs on Employee Productivity (original) (raw)

Improving Employee Productivity Through Improved Health

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 2013

Objective: The objective of this study was to estimate productivity-related savings associated with employee participation in health promotion programs. Methods: Propensity score weighting and multiple regression techniques were used to estimate savings. These techniques were adjusted for demographic and health status differences between participants who engaged in one or more telephonic health management programs and nonparticipants who were eligible for but did not engage in these programs. Results: Employees who participated in a program and successfully improved their health care or lifestyle showed significant improvements in lost work time. These employees saved an average of $353 per person per year. This reflects about 10.3 hours in additional productive time annually, compared with similar, but nonparticipating employees. Conclusions: Participating in health promotion programs can help improve productivity levels among employees and save money for their employers.

Do workplace wellness programs reduce medical costs? Evidence from a Fortune 500 company

Inquiry : a journal of medical care organization, provision and financing, 2013

The recent passage of the Affordable Care Act has heightened the importance of workplace wellness programs. This paper used administrative data from 2002 to 2007 for PepsiCo's self-insured plan members to evaluate the effect of its wellness program on medical costs and utilization. We used propensity score matching to identify a comparison group who were eligible for the program but did not participate. No significant changes were observed in inpatient admissions, emergency room visits, or per-member per-month (PMPM) costs. The discrepancy between our findings and those of prior studies may be due to the difference in intervention intensity or program implementation.

Workplace Wellness Programs: Services Offered, Participation, and Incentives

Rand health quarterly, 2015

This article leverages existing data on wellness programs to explore patterns of wellness program availability, employers' use of incentives, and program participation and utilization among employees. Researchers used two sets of data for this project: The first included data from the 2012 RAND Employer Survey, which used a nationally representative sample of U.S. employers that had detailed information on wellness program offerings, program uptake, incentive use, and employer characteristics. These data were used to answer questions on program availability, configuration, uptake, and incentive use. The second dataset included health care claims and wellness program information for a large employer. These data were analyzed to predict program participation and changes in utilization and health. The findings underscore the increasing prevalence of worksite wellness programs. About four-fifths of all U.S. employers with more than 1,000 employees are estimated to offer such program...

Health and Productivity as a Business Strategy: A Multiemployer Study

Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, 2009

To explore methodological refinements in measuring health-related lost productivity and to assess the business implications of a full-cost approach to managing health. Methods: Health-related lost productivity was measured among 10 employers with a total of 51,648 employee respondents using the Health and Work Performance Questionnaire combined with 1,134,281 medical and pharmacy claims. Regression analyses were used to estimate the associations of health conditions with absenteeism and presenteeism using a range of models. Results: Health-related productivity costs are significantly greater than medical and pharmacy costs alone (on average 2.3 to 1). Chronic conditions such as depression/anxiety, obesity, arthritis, and back/neck pain are especially important causes of productivity loss. Comorbidities have significant non-additive effects on both absenteeism and presenteeism. Executives/Managers experience as much or more monetized productivity loss from depression and back pain as Laborers/Operators. Testimonials are reported from participating companies on how the study helped shape their corporate health strategies. Conclusions: A strong link exists between health and productivity. Integrating productivity data with health data can help employers develop effective workplace health human capital investment strategies. More research is needed to understand the impacts of comorbidity and to evaluate the cost effectiveness of health and productivity interventions from an employer perspective.

Workplace Wellness Programs Can Generate Savings

Health Affairs, 2010

Amid soaring health spending, there is growing interest in workplace disease prevention and wellness programs to improve health and lower costs. In a critical meta-analysis of the literature on costs and savings associated with such programs, we found that medical costs fall by about 3.27foreverydollarspentonwellnessprogramsandthatabsenteeismcostsfallbyabout3.27 for every dollar spent on wellness programs and that absenteeism costs fall by about 3.27foreverydollarspentonwellnessprogramsandthatabsenteeismcostsfallbyabout2.73 for every dollar spent. Although further exploration of the mechanisms at work and broader applicability of the findings is needed, this return on investment suggests that the wider adoption of such programs could prove beneficial for budgets and productivity as well as health outcomes.

Corporate Wellness Programs: Implementation Challenges in the Modern American Workplace

2013

Being healthy is important for living well and achieving longevity. In the business realm, furthermore, employers want healthy employees, as these workers tend to be more productive, have fewer rates of absenteeism, and use less of their health insurance resources. This article provides an overview of corporate “wellness” efforts in the American workplace and the concomitant challenges which employers will confront in implementing these programs. Consequently, employers and managers must reflect upon wellness policies and objectives, consult with professionals, and discuss the ramifications thereof prior to implementation. The authors herein explore how employers are implementing policies that provide incentives to employees who lead “healthy” lifestyles as well as ones that impose costs on employees who lead “unhealthy” lifestyles. The distinctive contribution of this article is that it proactively explores wellness program implementation challenges and also supplies “best practices” in the modern workplace, so employers can be better prepared when they promulgate wellness policies, and then take practical steps to help their employees become healthier and thereby help to reduce insurance costs. The article, moreover, addresses how wellness policy incentives—in the form of “carrots” as well as penalties—in the form of “sticks” could affect employees, especially “non-healthy” employees, as well as employers, particularly legally. Based on the aforementioned challenges, the authors make practical recommendations for employers and managers, so that they can fashion and implement wellness policies that are deemed to be legal, ethical, and efficacious.

Placing workplace wellness in proper context: value beyond money

Preventing chronic disease, 2014

Most companies in the United States now offer some kind of wellness programming to their employees. In 2012, about half of US employers with at least 50 employees and more than 90% with more than 50,000 employees offered a workplace wellness program (1). Employer surveys (eg, the 2011 Automatic Data Processing Survey) suggest that the most often-cited reasons for offering these programs include improved employee health, health care cost control, increased productivity, and absenteeism reduction. Each of these reasons is quantifiable, and their value can be monetized, allowing for a calculation of savings and an estimation of a return on investment (ROI). Yet it isn't necessarily always about saving money. Dr Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, notes in a recent online post that companies committed to nurturing a culture of wellbeing consider broader motivations, including low turnover rates, attraction of top candidates, job satisfaction, and recruitment and retention of workers (2). Each factor was reported as being a more important driver of workplace wellness programs than ROI.

Incorporating wellness into employee benefit strategies--why it makes sense

Benefits quarterly, 2013

By putting together a comprehensive wellness strategy, employers are not only "doing the right thing" but also are able to see, believe and maintain the tangible return on investment (ROI) that wellness programs are capable of delivering. This article discusses employers' ROI from wellness initiatives, as well as innovations that support a culture of wellness and what enhanced opportunities for increasing employee wellness are available under health care reform. It also describes how wellness is a component of population health management, as well as a core component of the health care delivery system.

Examining Wellness Programs Over Time: Predicting Participation and Workplace Outcomes

Journal of Occupational Health Psychology

The return on investment of employer wellness programs has been heavily debated in recent years, yet existing research has failed to adequately assess the psychological factors that motivate program participation and how participation relates to organizationally relevant employee attitudes and behaviors. Using data over a 3-year period, we found beliefs about the value of employee wellness programs and perceived organizational support (POS) for wellness to be linked to wellness program participation through the mediation of intention to participate in the wellness program. Those with greater wellness participation were found to have higher performance ratings, higher job satisfaction, higher intention to stay, and lower turnover. However, the effects for job satisfaction and intention to stay disappeared when controlling for prior levels of satisfaction and intention to stay in cross-lagged models. Implications for scholars and practitioners are discussed. Hypothesis 1a: Beliefs about the value of employee wellness programs (Year 1 [Y1]) will lead to subsequent levels of wellness program participation (Year 2 [Y2] and Year 3 [Y3]).