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More Companies Invest In Workers' Health

Tribune photo by VICTOR JUNCO

Corporate wellness programs are ramping up at offices across the nation as companies struggle with skyrocketing health insurance costs and increasing absenteeism.

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By MARY SHEDDEN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 29, 2008

Employers hoping to improve the company's bottom line are starting to pay more attention to their workers' "bottom lines."

Corporate wellness programs are ramping up at offices across the nation as companies struggle with skyrocketing health insurance costs and increasing absenteeism. Companies that once relied primarily on monthly wellness newsletters to get their point across are making way for in-house fitness competitions and incentive programs aimed at curbing chronic illness.

The weak economy is behind the push to invest in and focus more on employee health than disease prevention, shows a survey of 500 American companies conducted this year by benefit firm Hewitt. A full 88 percent of the firms said they are investing in longer-term solutions aimed at improving health and productivity, compared to 63 percent just a year ago. It's more than a 50 percent jump from a decade ago.

The motivation is pretty simple: Healthier employees reduce the number of insurance claims, sick days and "presentee-ism" (days when people show up sick and are of little help to the company or workers around them).

"Wherever you are on the scale of fitness, we want to keep you from getting worse," says John Fraser, senior vice president of Wallace, Welch & Willingham Inc., an independent insurance company that last year shifted its wellness strategy.

The firm instituted new policies at its downtown St. Petersburg office, including a policy to hire only nonsmokers. It hired a wellness coordinator to consult with clients and employees. Vendors known for bringing trays of high-fat, high-carbohydrate pastries to the company break room were warned to switch to more healthful choices or risk having their treats turned away.

Most notable, however, is a new voluntary fitness competition that offers gift certificates and small cash prizes to employees who walk, run and exercise the most. More than half of the company's 90 workers signed up for daily "at-your-desk" exercises, joined teams and clipped electronic pedometers onto their shoes for months. For some, coffee and lunch breaks offer an opportunity to hike around downtown.

Individual champion Debbie Bailey, 50, says she didn't think she had time to participate in the contest that started in January. But she used the early-morning walks she already took to motivate her to do even more during the workday. The result: She lost 10 pounds and has bragging rights over others in the office, including Weyman Willingham, chairman of the board of directors, who came in second.

"Once it became a company thing, then we were walking around grabbing each other to go walking," says Bailey, a commercial lines account manager. "It's brought in so much camaraderie here. We have 90 people here and it's easy to lose touch."

The success of an office wellness program clearly depends on how much employees buy into the concept, Fraser and others say. Improving the company's health is important, but it's also vital that no one feels forced to enroll in a contest or to remove a bowl of candy from his or her desk. A recent Hewitt survey of 30,000 employees showed just 12 percent of workers think their company should have a role in how they understand how to stay healthy.

"It's not easy," Fraser says. "Not everybody is accepting the culture change."

Large insurance companies such as AvMed and Blue Cross Blue Shield are attempting to help employers get more workers engaged in wellness opportunities. A Blue Cross report released this summer shows how the company increased participation by 21 percent or more at North Carolina's Food Lion grocery chain by offering individualized wellness opportunities such as walking programs, nutritional counseling, mammograms and flu shots.

Tampa-based Sweetbay Supermarket is a sister company of Food Lion and utilizes the same health benefits program for its 8,500 full- and part-time employees, spokeswoman Nicole LeBeau Gavin says.

Programs like these symbolize the way companies are starting to perceive workplace wellness, says Don Ardell of St. Petersburg, a wellness consultant and author of "Aging Beyond Belief: 69 Tips for Real Wellness" (Whole Person Associates, $16). The conversation must avoid focusing only on prevention programs, such as weight-loss and smoking cessation classes.

"In the United States, wellness means medical management," Ardell says. "Let's consider changing that."

It's easy to see why the conversation, however, is so focused on cost. More than 75 percent of health care dollars are spent treating chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease, reports the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Health insurance costs are the single fastest-growing cost for employers, says the National Coalition on Health Care. In the last year alone, employers have seen health insurance costs increase more than 6 percent. The average annual insurance premium employers are charged for a family of four is $12,100, the advocacy group says.

And the mighty dollar bill might be motivating more workers to get involved in wellness at work. Families of four, for example, are paying $1,400 more a year in annual health premiums than they did in 2000, the health care coalition says.

If that's not enough of an incentive to get moving, maybe a $25 prize for the top walker in the office will do the trick.

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