Employee Health Screening

Ten Steps Toward Strategic Employee Health and Wellness Programs

The Employee Health and Wellness Program management world is evolving rapidly. Each month, there are new research findings that support the premise that Employee Health and Wellness Programs and disease management have a long-term impact on health care costs. Many large companies that started Employee Health and Wellness Programs three to five years ago are showing savings in health, disability, and workers compensation costs. Small to mid-size companies are watching all this and wondering where to start with wellness.

Getting upper management support and budget approval is one of the challenges at the beginning of a Employee Health and Wellness Program. This is the case because Employee Health and Wellness Programs can be expensive, averaging $150-300 per staff member per year in large companies. Most of the savings are not realized for a number of years. This long-term investing is hard for companies on the move.

The key to success for Employee Health and Wellness Programs is to take a strategic approach. Here are ten steps to consider when starting a Employee Health and Wellness Program.

1. Start with upper management. Without upper management support, a health promotion strategy can fall flat. Start with the health of your executive team and discover your wellness champions at the top of the organization.
2. Assess the problem. Look at your health care claims and analyze the trends. Which conditions are driving your medical, disability, and workers’ compensation claims and which are modifiable? What’s worked and what hasn’t thus far? What is the long-term impact of doing nothing?
3. Hold an initial wellness meeting. Invite your primary stakeholders both inside and outside the organization. Ask your broker to facilitate the meeting and invite primary health vendors including health, disability, Employee Assistance Program (EAP), fitness, and occupational nursing. Review claims and utilization information and identify primary areas of concern. Look at current offerings and see how they can be tailored to the needs of the population.
4. Consider both healthy and unhealthy workers. Since 85 percent of claims are usually attributed to 15 percent of claimants, it is essential to reach those with the most costly conditions while also reaching staff members who are at risk for developing preventable diseases in the future. Voluntary Employee Health and Wellness Programs such as lunchtime wellness seminars miss many of the staff members who need them most. Consider initiatives that are population-wide or target intact workgroups. Wellness incentives help but do not motivate everyone.
5. Set short-term goals for the Employee Health and Wellness Programs. Set some realistic short-term goals based on your primary areas of concern. Are there any plan design changes that could have an immediate impact on spending? Are there some programmatic actions that could have immediate results?
6. Determine what workers are thinking. Hold some focus groups to determine where staff members are with wellness. What’s working? What isn’t? How much interest do staff members have in the Employee Health and Wellness Programs? What obstacles and barriers are workers experiencing when they try to change behavior?
7. Make sure you have a high-impact Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Your first wellness dollars should go into upgrading your Employee Assistance Program (EAP). A highly utilized Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide a foundation for all of your future wellness activities. A good Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is a trusted link to the hearts and minds of workers. At no additional cost, the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) can provide needed follow-up coaching and personal attention for workers who are working on modifiable health behaviors or involved in disease management initiatives. Nutritionists, fitness, pregnancy, and stress management specialists are all part of a high-value Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
8. Set three to five year goals for health care savings and measure them. Get help from your broker and insurance carrier help you on long-term goals for your health, disability, and workers compensation plans. Start program metrics that will help you to measure return on investment. Go beyond participation rates, completion rates and program satisfaction. Measure changes in readiness, changes in behavior, and changes in risk factors. Start rigorous methods to measure health care savings over the long term.
9. Set goals for organizational health. Consider the more intangible benefits of a wellness initiative and quantify them whenever possible. Include staff member turnover rates, cost of new hires, staff member morale, benefit satisfaction information, and employer of choice issues in setting goals. Start ways to measure success in these areas.
10. Add specifics to your short and long-term plan. Include a Employee Health and Wellness Program strategy, a communication strategy, and a Employee Health and Wellness Program incentive strategy that will fit with your corporate culture. Focus on integration of related components along a health continuum with communications that are focused, simple, and human. Start a budget that includes primary components such as consumer education, health promotion, health risk assessments, and regular biometric screens.

Employee Health and Wellness Programs are crucial to improving the health of our nations. Most adults spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else, making it a excellent venue for promoting healthful habits. The worksite organizational culture and environment are powerful influences on behavior and this needs to be put to use as a method of assisting workers to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Advantages to Employee Health and Wellness Programs include:
• Weight reduction
• Improved physical fitness
• Increased stamina
• Lower levels of stress
• Increased well-being, self-image and self-esteem

Employers can also benefit from Employee Health and Wellness Programs. According to recent research, employers’ benefits are:

• Enhanced recruitment and retention of healthy workers
• Reduced health care costs
• Decreased rates of illness and injuries
• Reduced staff member rates of absence
• Improved staff member relations and morale
• Increased productivity

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report revealed that at worksites with physical activity initiatives as components of their Employee Health and Wellness Programs have:

• Reduced health care costs by 20 to 55 percent
• Reduced short-term sick leave by six to 32 percent
• Increased productivity by two to 52 percent

Thanks to modern medicine, life expectancy for Americans has continually increased. How much we enjoy these additional years, however, depends greatly on how we have lived our lives. If our quality of life is to remain high so that we can fully enjoy these extra years, we must practice good eating habits, be active and refrain from using tobacco products.