Do Workplace Wellness Programs Save Employers Money?
rand.org
rand.org
The biggest predictor I've found to getting regular exercise once you have a gym membership is how far you live from a gym. When someone tells me they go to the gym regularly I ask how far they live from the gym and it is typical that the gym is extremely convenient for them (usually within a few blocks in a city or a few minutes drive in the suburbs).
I started asking this when I noticed the impact of convencient on my exercise habits. I myself was in the best shape of my life when I lived two blocks from a gym. It made going to the gym an "impulse" option for which I didn't have to set aside time in my schedule. I went practically everyday, but not at a set time in the day. It's easy to maintain a daily habit that you can do at any time during the day. It's much harder to maintain a habit that you only have one or two slots of time available in the day to do, since every other concern that can't wait and need to be done during your exercise slots threatens making exercise a habit.
For example, I think both Asana and Heroku have it right by making wellness accessible. Both have yoga rooms and classes daily. I would be much more likely to participate if a wellness activity like yoga were made that accessible.
If the gym or other physical activity isn't convenient and there isn't time set aside for it, it usually won't happen.
Isn't this specifically what they are talking about? Giving all employees time / subsiding gyms doesn't pay off.
Plus this concept, if it was easier suddenly I'd do yoga or gym more probably isn't true. It's an excuse employees use, but make it easier then they'd find another excuse.
And Gym/Yoga isn't for everyone. Many offices / organisations have gyms and wellness programs with yoga and very little of the staff use them. And those that do are as the article points out probably people who don't need the help as much anyway.
But you're right, a great employer does care about more things than just money-above-all.
It's pretty hard to measure rate of work output and wellness programs effectiveness on this so they are kinda doing it by proxy.
The point they are making is people are consistently lying about this issue. Wellness programs don't pay for them selves according to their figures even though many organisations claim they do.
And if we are going to go forward on this issue we need to start talking about the real facts.
Such as they suggest targeting people who have serious issues rather than everyone.
Make real change not token change for the sake of it.
I also think people subconsciously suspect much of the advice is of dubious validity, which may be why the public at large is relatively unaffected by health recommendations. There is a trend in public health to move away from educating the populace and towards regulation, especially food distribution and composition. Regulating industry can affect food consumption much more dramatically than attempting to get people to change their behavior voluntarily.
But I don't think enough people are examining the recommendations themselves, and demanding very good science to back up the advice. Luckily for all of us, food manufacturers have an economic incentive to fight against dubious science ... often maligned for fighting regulation, I think in this case they have a point, and without that economic incentive I might be prevented from buying potato chips.
And what kind of world would this be without potato chips?
They add that wellness programs do reduce time off which would further increase savings, but ignore the fact that healthy people are more productive and employees view perks as additional pay which aids retention. Which suggests wellness programs are vary cost effective.
PS: RAND is a political organisation that looks for facts supporting there conclusions rather that doing actual research.
1: It is incredibly easy to out-eat any moderate exercise regime; a single soda can undo a half hour of running. I suspect that most people who are in the obese and overweight zones do not have the cardiovascular or muscular fitness to make any meaningful dent in their caloric budget. That being said, fitness is important for general health and there is definitely a range of BF% where exercise goes from inconsequential to critical for body composition purposes.
Calories in / calories out is NOT the whole story. But it is enough of the story and compliance is easy enough that it has the best results in the long term.
The primary health risks under investigation in the Whitehall studies include cardiovascular function, smoking, car ownership, angina, leisure and hobbies, ECG measurements, and diabetes.
Also, A Finnish study conducted a cohort study similar to Whitehall, but with greater analysis of the worker's stress. The study determined that decision autonomy was not a significant contributing factor to coronary heart disease, but that lack of predictability in the workplace was a significant factor. In the Finnish study, "predictability" was defined as high stability of work and lack of unexpected changes, and was found to correlate closely to employment grade.
They're looking at seven enormous employers. Can their findings really be applied to all employers? There's a lot of variance between employers (average salary, average age of employees, region where employees are based). I'm not sure that you could reasonably compare employees at, say, WalMart, with employees at Goldman Sachs or Google. There's also presumably a lot of variance between these different programs. Is it possible that some programs are just badly executed?
And when it comes to costs, did they consider management distraction - as in, if you're doing this, what isn't the organization (management) focusing on?
This is a pointless article.
For instance, healthy sleep makes people perform better at problem solving tasks and avoid depression. These effects are realized extremely quickly. Exercise has similar benefits.
How fast people can solve problems? Do they pick fights with their colleagues? These things hit the employer's bottom line too, whether or not you measure them.
You get what you measure. RAND needs to measure ROI better.
How does that make any damn sense? A Snickers and a cup of water are going give me more energy, and more of a 'full' feeling than a bottle of Pepsi.
Sounds great until you compare accidental injury statistics from falls on stairs vs. elevators.
But how many employers will pay for treadmill desks?