Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? Usually Not | Hacker News Reader

Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? Usually Not

nytimes.com

41 pointsbrandonb23 comments

Just give me decent office space, flextime, and a sensible allowance for vacation, (self-directed) training and sabbaticals -- and, if you don't mind, a solid health insurance that doesn't deduct from my salary base in order to cover beyond the bare minimum -- please. That's all I need for "wellness."

Ahahah, you can also ask for a pony and a ticket to Mars.

I have everything OP asked for (I work from home, sane work-life balance, unlimited vacation), except I pay ~$500/month for health insurance on my own (I can get a better quality plan on my own, two people both in their 30s; thanks ACA!). I took my job because it cut my commute time from 40-60 hours a month to 0.

What OP is asking for isn't crazy, most companies just don't have the management structure (or good management) to provide it. You can find these companies, just plan on spending time looking (took me a year, but I was employed during that time).

At Gridium we provide literally everything on the list.

Quit giving staff delicious unhealthy food.

Yeah. It's amazing how many companies with "wellness" polices also happen to have the most cafeterias and kitchens (when they have them).

Can we agree that it's not the having of a kitchen or cafeteria, but what they stock it with that is the problem?

I would relish a kitchen or cafeteria stocked with delicious and wholesome food.

Oh god this is so true.

> Medium-to-large employers spent an average of $521 per employee on wellness programs last year, double the amount they spent five years ago . . .

The question from me wouldn't be whether or not they work, but are they worth the time, money and effort that is put into these programs?

I wonder if the PepsiCo Healthy Living program directed people to consume fewer PepsiCo products. It seems awkward for them to either address or ignore.

Not directly. It promotes exercise, quitting smoking, etc. The extent of their healthy product endeavor is reducing salt, sugar, trans fats, pushing naked juice, bottled water, an flavored water products.

I've always been told that wellness programs existed to obtain discounts from the insurance providers, akin to "honor roll" discounts with car insurance. As long as you have the bare minimum to qualify, you get a nice chunk of $$$ chopped off your rate.

I get that plenty of rate modifiers have strong links to driving safety like age and marriage status. However, in my limited opinion, there's no way "honor roll" has anything but the weakest link to safe driving as the barrier to achievement varies drastically on a school-to-school basis. Insurance companies are data driven but data (especially healthcare data) lags so long that I wouldn't be surprised if discounts for running a wellness program were founded purely in speculation. This article seems to back that assumption with hard proof as well.

Large employers are generally self-funded, meaning that they pay their healthcare claims dollar-for-dollar. Blue Cross (or whomever) serves as a claims administrator and takes a premium for the service, but may not provide any actual "insurance" with respect to the company (some have maximum per-year and maximum per-employee caps to the company but they aren't usually triggered by the sorts of things that wellness programs address).

Big companies hope that wellness programs really will decrease healthcare spend and increase morale --- chronic conditions like diabetes and smoking do have a disproportionate impact on the healthcare bottom line. That said, once-off specialty conditions (cancer, heart surgery, etc.) have an even bigger impact and aren't addressed by this.

The big items are also probabilistic events likely related to a lot of underlying health circumstances. If cancer or heart surgery can be merely delayed a year through the wellness program, then that may just be the year the employee retires or switches jobs and goes onto a different health insurer.

These things are so incredibly expensive that even a small shift in them could be worth a considerable amount of dollars per worker. And that's not even considering productivity benefits (which are in turn so hard to quantify we'll almost always be talking about gut feelings on this issue.)

this article seems to confirm my pet theory that most programs promoting "wellness" are rarely effective because it doesn't involve true intrinsic motivation (it talks about extrinsic carrots and sticks). you need to want to do something that has a side effect of wellness. for example, i started playing basketball again after i could find no other activity that would keep me at a healthy weight. i keep playing because i'm competitive, both with myself and with others. this is similar to how viral loops work - get people active by allowing them to 'level up' and feel good about themselves.

Previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260

What about employee happiness, productivity and stress levels?

Anecdotally my coworkers and I find it hyper creepy and don't participate. Very few people do. I don't actually know anybody who does, despite extremely heavy promotion such as nearly weekly spam and even physical paper spam sent to our homes. I'm one of the few people I work with who would auto-qualify because I exercise during my lunch hour, sorta reasonably healthy, great diet, but even I won't sign up.

A program like this is almost the definition of a violation of work-life balance. Way too creepy, big brother is monitoring you. The last thing I want is an awkward metric on my annual review to verify my prostate is getting a regular workout and what my employer can do to help out and hows my stamina now and whatever other totally inappropriate freakishness they think up. The whole concept is just offensive. Just too many crossed boundaries. I find the sex analogy to be highly relevant. A happy employee is a productive employee so we should all be required to document and track our sexual activity with our boss and have a performance improvement plan as part of our reviews to make sure we're getting some. Next we can add religion! Ugh.

They offer a wellness clinic in the lunch room about twice a year, free screenings and free vaccinations. Many people participate, including myself, the primary reason this isn't creepy is this doesn't involve my boss or HR or payroll getting involved, no big brother garbage. At least not in public (maybe there is a secret file on me for each flu vaccination I've gotten, donno).

Here's the dilemma. How do employers control medical expenses? And then as an employee, why don't i get incentives for having healthy blood pressure levels, perfect cholesterol levels, a normal BMI? Our society is increasing becoming obese and our health care spending is spiring out of control. Something has to give. We have a really weird system where employers pay for our healthcare which is why see these wellness programs which people deem creepy.

Why are employers linked to healthcare? The idea is clearly insane, if you consider the recent court cases about christian companies (an oxymoron in itself) denying to pay for contraception (as part of the health plan, which contents are increasingly regulated).

This isn't how it works in countries with functioning public healthcare systems.

> Why are employers linked to healthcare? The idea is clearly insane

Because socialism is evil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United...

I mean, it's trite but that's what it boiled down to. Truman had the idea of a an optional, government-backed health plan. Someone trots the magic "socialism" trigger word, and labor unions settled for employer-provided health insurance instead. (Though I wonder how Truman's plan would be self-sustaining if it were optional. We have enough problems financing not-optional plans.)

"why don't i get incentives for having healthy"

Your incentive is health and a long active retirement, rather than keeling over dead on the job at 35.

(And edited to add that there's an obvious conflict of interest in that the pension (LOL) or 401K dept wants you to die as young as possible, whereas the health insurance wants you to avoid acute illnesses (dead in 10 yrs is fine, because you'll be working elsewhere by then, statistically))

Note that non-employees like employers or .mil people or whatever all have the same incentive. Sucks to be sick, or dead.

"Here's the dilemma. How do employers control medical expenses?"

Employer provided health insurance is a WWII thing, and only in America. In the long run no employers will offer health insurance, just like the old days. That doesn't necessarily mean no health care, or no health insurance middlemen, but does imply no more employer involvement.

These things come and go in phases and much like company stores and unions are not exactly at their high point of popularity right now, its time to sunset employer provided health care. Perhaps they'll all be back in the future, just not anytime soon. Economics are getting rid of that benefit faster than creepy wellness programs are spreading. I expect to be uninsured (by my employer, anyway) sooner than I'll be required to join a wellness program, so we'll just avoid it for awhile longer and then the problem will go away.

By fostering a culture of healthy lifestyles? I don't know about other employers, but where I work, there's a big social impetus to be active - it's part of the watercooler talk - and either you have something exercise/sport related you discuss, lie about it, or just don't participate. Similarly in this vein are the pedometer/activity challenges where employees compete for the most steps/activity/etc.

I think positive social motivators can be a generally positive way of getting the worker populace more healthy.

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