Employee Wellness

Employee wellness is a topic that's widely discussed. Why is employee wellness of interest? Here are several of the latest statistics to support the need for employee wellness. Feel free to use them while you build support for an employee wellness program at your company.

  • Approximately 95 percent of the $1.4 TRILLION that we spend as a nation on medical care costs goes directly to medical care services while only 5 percent is allocated to preventing disease and promoting health.
  • At least 70 percent of all medical care claims are due to modifiable health risks (i.e. smoking, obesity, alcohol use) that are 100 percent preventable. Employee wellness programs are great places to address this issue.
  • The excess costs of an staff member that smokes is $960 per year, $401 for excess weight, $370 for high cholesterol, and $343 for high blood pressure.
  • If an staff member has 2 out of the 3 of these risks factors, you can see it really adds up to total costs to have them as an staff member.
  • Healthy workers are generally happier, more satisfied, and more productive in their work as well as their personal life.
  • 65 percent of American adults are not actively engaged in regular exercise and--more than 30 percent of adult Americans are obese! Employee wellness programs are great places to address this issue.

Employee wellness programs should include spouses and children in their programs. Employee wellness programs provide a great way to meet the needs of many in one location! When an staff member that is also a spouse or parent learns something in the workplace about improving their health they share the information with their family as well.

Employee Wellness Challenges

The 2004 National Worksite Health Promotion (NWHP) Survey they found that there are generally five obstacles that most commonly impact wellness program.

Top Five Employee Wellness Program Challenges:

  • Lack of staff member interest accounted for 63.5 percent
  • Insufficient staff resources contributed to 50.1 percent
  • Inadequate funds accounted for 48.2 percent
  • Failure to engage high-risk workers for 48 percent
  • Inability to elicit the support of upper management resulted in 38 percent more of the reason why Employee Wellnesss did not achieve the health & wellness goals established by corporations.

Employers who understand and embrace the apparent challenges will be far more successful than those who don't. Using the data from this report, corporations can be better prepared and able to develop a framework for their employee wellness program and avoid the mistakes others have made. Utilizing the help of a wellness consultant can be useful in starting a strategic plan of attack for your company.

The most important ingredient in starting a successful wellness program is communication between upper management and workers, especially during the initial planning phases. Lack of communication and expectations can be devastating to the employee wellness program and thus it will lack support, participation, and of course a successful return on investment.