Why do companies have wellness programs

Companies may choose to create a corporate wellness program from scratch. Hiring a corporate wellness service provider will be more suitable for activities that involve the help of specialists, such as holding health and wellness workshops, organizing biometric screening assessments, or hosting seasonal flu vaccination clinics.

Working with an agency is often necessary because there can be restrictions and extensive processes required to carry out certain programs, making it difficult for companies to organize these programs by themselves.

For example, if you want to offer a workplace flu vaccination clinic, you have to submit an application to the government, the vaccination needs to be administered by a regulated health professional, and the vaccinations need to be stored in a designated fridge set to a specific temperature.

This is often not possible for a company to manage, so it is much more feasible to outsource the work to an outside agency. Even if you already know the activities you want to include in your corporate wellness program, it could be difficult to decide whether you want to implement it using your internal resources or through an agency. To make your life easier, here are some advantages and disadvantages of each option.

The good news is there is a price point for several common services offered by corporate wellness service providers. Biometric screenings are a comprehensive assessment using multiple tests to assess different health indicators.

A biometric screening may include some or all of these tests:. These workshops often focus on important subject matters like nutrition, sleep, exercise, and stress management. Lots of research should be done prior to implementing your corporate wellness program to ensure high success and a strong participation rate. An ideal corporate wellness program incorporates activities planned by your internal team, along with special services offered by an outside agency.

At the end of the day, what matters most is achieving your organizational goals, and keeping your employees happy, healthy, and productive. Closing the Gap Healthcare offers a comprehensive and professional corporate wellness program to reduce absenteeism rates, prevent chronic diseases, lower the cost of employee benefits, and more. These are challenging times in many of our communities as the number of new COVID cases is a real concern.

As such, it has never been more important to work together to keep you and our CTG team members safe. The CTG team is actively monitoring the situation in all communities in which we are present, and we are working closely with public health departments, government, and other health care organizations to manage the impact. And most importantly, we are working closely with you.

Together we can continue to ensure you safely receive the high-quality care you deserve, and our team members remain safe. Our number one priority will always be the safety and well-being of our clients and CTG team members, every day and at every community, school, or clinic visit.

Be assured that regardless of the screening results, you will receive the care you need but we may need to take additional precautions for your safety and the safety of others. If they must be present, they will be asked to wear a mask or face covering. All nursing and physiotherapy clients will be provided a new mask when they arrive at a CTG clinic. Ideally, open multiple windows to promote a cross breeze. If you have any questions or would like more information, please feel free to reach out to us.

You can also find current information at www. March 18, Having a corporate wellness program in your workplace can bring substantial benefits to both your employees and your company. Outside Agency: Which is Better? Organizations that do not have medical facilities can arrange for screenings through their health care providers or through the proliferating number of companies in the wellness business. Employees may have varied perceptions of health screening programs.

Many employees view them as a free health benefit; other employees may see them as an intrusion into their private lives. Health risk assessments have become valuable tools for helping employees understand and start to manage their health.

However, it can be challenging to persuade employees to fill out a risk assessment and, more important, to persuade them to use the resulting insights to become proactive about their health.

Popular incentives include cash, reductions in employee contributions to health insurance premiums and employer contributions to the employee's health savings account or flexible spending account. Other incentives range from T-shirts or hats to lower health care costs in the form of reductions in deductibles, co-payments and co-insurance.

A few employers make risk assessment participation a requirement for health care coverage eligibility, a strategy that creates its own legal risks. Employers that institute health risk assessments within their workforces must be mindful that the Americans with Disabilities Act ADA and GINA allow employers to offer voluntary wellness programs but prohibit them from requiring involuntary disclosure of disability-related information and genetic information.

Under the ADA, health- and disability-related inquiries and employee medical examinations must be completely voluntary, but employers can ask for medical information if they reasonably believe that employees will be unable to perform an essential function of the job because of a medical condition or will pose a direct threat to themselves or others because of the condition. Obesity is a major wellness challenge in the U. Managing obesity within the workforce can involve nutrition, exercise and mental health programs.

Employers interested in sponsoring weight loss programs for employees have a variety of options, including the following:. Employer-sponsored weight loss initiatives may also include exercise programs, fitness centers, nutritional education and food options, and incentives for participating in a weight loss program.

Providing tobacco-cessation programs can improve employees' health and longevity while cutting health care expenditures and improving employers' bottom lines. Such programs can include the following:. Although stress at a certain level can be an effective motivator and may spur productivity, employer-sponsored stress reduction programs can help participants understand when their stress has become unhealthy and has affected aspects of their personal and professional lives.

Given the potentially severe personal and financial costs of excess stress on employees, employers should consider increasing wellness program efforts in this area. Some common programs and practices include the following:. Employers are increasingly relying on incentives to motivate employees to take part in wellness programs and to improve their health-related behaviors. Employers use several different types of incentives to encourage employees to participate in health improvement programs.

These include offering cash and gift cards and making additional contributions to health savings accounts. Also, some employers reduce their contributions to health plans if employees do not engage in any programs. Many experts say health premium reductions are the most effective incentives for persuading employees to participate in wellness initiatives. Such discounts, which are becoming more popular with employers, may be offered to employees for getting an annual risk assessment, participating in a weight loss program or not using tobacco products.

Employers should make sure their wellness incentives are designed so they do not inadvertently lead to unhealthy behaviors.

For example, a per-pound weight loss incentive with no limits may encourage unhealthy weight loss practices. Or an incentive for attending a fitness center that expires after one year may result in employees ending their regimens. Employers have a great deal of latitude in designing employee wellness plans, and the list of options goes beyond those previously described.

Certain components of a wellness program are critical to its success. In addition to adopting a variety of proven wellness program management methods, organizations should take steps to increase employee participation and engagement in wellness programs and activities. Effectively designed and managed wellness programs will not succeed without sufficiently high levels of employee participation and engagement to achieve program goals.

A more customized approach to wellness program participation may increase participation levels. Best practices in this regard include the following:. Engagement in the wellness program context refers to employees' active involvement and commitment to personal wellness and to the organization's wellness programs.

Organizations that want to maximize wellness program engagement should be aware of the various influences and obstacles affecting engagement, such as the following:. Adhering to the following rules of engagement can help employers maximize the ROI on employee wellness program endeavors:. Numerous legal issues and compliance requirements are related to wellness programs.

Federal laws that apply to the design and management of wellness programs include the following:. But both laws have an exception that permits the collection of such information as part of employer wellness plans, as long as an employee provides such information voluntarily.

A wellness program is voluntary if employees are neither required to participate nor are penalized for abstaining. The rule took effect Jan. In December , the court then vacated the regulations, effective Jan. Therefore, until the EEOC released new proposed regulations, employers must work with their attorney to determine whether a monetary incentive and how much is right for their organization.

HIPAA prohibits group health plans from discriminating against individuals based on health-status factors. The law divides wellness programs into two general categories: participatory wellness programs and health-contingent wellness programs. In participatory programs, rewards are based only on an employee's involvement, and in health-contingent programs, incentives are attached to outcomes.

Health-contingent wellness programs generally reward individuals who meet a specific standard related to their health. Examples of health-contingent wellness programs include programs that provide a reward to those who do not use or decrease their use of tobacco, or programs that reward those who achieve a health-related goal, such as a specified cholesterol level, weight or body mass index, as well as those who fail to meet such goals but take certain other healthy actions.

Health-contingent wellness programs are required to follow five main standards related to nondiscrimination:. Participatory wellness programs are generally compliant with HIPAA so long as participation in the program is made available to all similarly situated individuals, regardless of health status. There is no limit on financial incentives for participatory wellness programs.

The Affordable Care Act requires that employees be offered a waiver or a "reasonable alternative standard" to earn the incentive if it is unreasonably difficult for them because of a medical condition or if it is medically inadvisable for them to satisfy a health standard during the incentive period. One way to design a reasonable alternative standard is to combine a points system with a menu of program options personalized to the participant's health needs and to offer the support of a health coach to guide participants through the process.

Regardless of the types of wellness program initiatives an organization decides to adopt, effective communication is key to gain the level of employee participation and engagement in the program necessary to reap expected benefits.

Employers should use communication to create a social culture where being healthy is valued. This can be done in many ways using well-established techniques of marketing and changing behavior, such as the following:.

Employers should discuss legal considerations in wellness program communication with an attorney. Considerations include the following:. Organizations should inform employees that they are protected under HIPAA and the ADA, which ensure that the medical information they voluntarily provide to HR will be kept private, and that if it is medically inadvisable or unreasonable for them to attempt any standard of the program, another method will be designed so the employee can earn an equivalent reward.

Applying metrics helps measure wellness program success. Employers should examine not only program participation but also the ROI that the organization sought in launching the program.

Key questions that an organization may wish to ask itself in measuring program effectiveness include the following:. Employers should be prepared to wait three to five years to see the real ROI on wellness programs. Employers should also be cautious about implementing too many changes after they launch a wellness program because the more changes there are, the harder it will be to reliably measure ROI.

Traditional wellness programs rely on hard-copy handouts, instructor-led classes and coaching in person or by telephone. All are difficult to deliver when employees work at multiple sites, and they can be quite costly. Today, web-based solutions can deliver the same information to a limitless number of employees, 24 hours a day, from any location with Internet access and for a fraction of the cost.

Online solutions should be one part of a coordinated wellness program, not a substitute for offline wellness programs. Online wellness offerings vary widely, as do their costs. For example, online solutions can provide basic nutrition and support for physical activity. An open-access site can provide a forum for individuals and groups to set health goals, track progress and share experiences through bulletin board postings and blogs. Employers can create private teams and invite employees to join by e-mail via a hyperlink.

More sophisticated solutions include capabilities such as online health risk assessments; digital health coaching; disease management and support modules; and automated, personal medication, diet and exercise reminders.

Gym Membership. You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page. Toolkits Designing and Managing Wellness Programs. September 11, Reuse Permissions. Page Content. Scope —This article provides an overview of employer-sponsored wellness programs for employees. It includes a discussion of the increasing importance of wellness programs, their potential benefits for employees and employers, the varied types of wellness programs an organization can provide, approaches in designing and implementing effective wellness programs, and HR's role in the process.

The article also addresses legal issues, communications, metrics and technology trends related to wellness programs. Background As health care costs continue to increase, employers and employees are searching for ways to keep these costs under control and as manageable as possible.

HR's Role Human resource professionals can and should play a key role in designing and managing workplace wellness programs. HR's responsibilities with respect to wellness programs may include the following: Advocating for the establishment of such programs to achieve strategic objectives. Assessing wellness program options. Designing and implementing various types of wellness programs.

Enlisting the help of experts when and where needed. While some businesses have instituted very comprehensive wellness programs, others have achieved savings or increased productivity with just a few simple activities that promote healthy behaviors.

So why is it, then, that employers over the years have not been quick to offer these programs? Many employers still seem to question whether or not workplace wellness is worth the investment. As with anything, wellness programs present organizations with a set of challenges. To reap the benefits of a wellness program, employers must maximize employee buy-in and participation.

Additionally, measuring the success or ROI of these programs is difficult to do accurately and comprehensively. Every program and level of investment is unique to the employer; participation levels are unique; employee health and health outcomes are also unique.

Studies show that employees are more likely to be on the job and performing well when they are in optimal health. Benefits of implementing a wellness program include:. The Wellness Council of America WELCOA is dedicated to the promotion of worksite wellness, and has identified the seven best practices for employers to follow when building a wellness program within their organization.

Information can be found at www.