Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
health and wellness in workplace
health wellness programs in the workplace research paper
health wellness programs in the workplace research paper
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: health and wellness in workplace
Health and Wellness
Health and wellness in the work place is a vital part to a company’s success. Employees who are healthier and more productive are less likely to call out from sickness. There are not many companies that have affordable health care coverage for employees. More companies should make healthcare affordable for their employees and their family. Research has been done on how effective health and wellness programs can be in the workplace. Throughout the reading these points will be discussed. The effectiveness of health and wellness in the workplace will also be spoken of. Health and wellness activities in the workplace will be a positive move for companies and employees.
Companies have started to focus more on the physical appearance of their employees. Companies in Colorado have started to offer group discounts, free club newsletters, wellness and nutrition courses, and also office fitness classes. A general manager at a Colorado athletic club advised that this company involvement has been good for business. In an article by Lisa Marshall, she quotes the manager saying that “We try to be a resource, to come along side them and help them in an area where they may not have the expertise.”(vol. 35 p51) An estimated 40% to 50% of health club members take part in the club through some employer suggestion. Marshall also states that “health care costs spur companies to invest in preventive programs, and lifestyle guidance.” With more companies taking part in wellness in the workplace it has been determined that money will be saved on preventing illnesses. Some companies help employees with the stress of trying to stay healthy. They do things like having a nutrionist come by for free one-on-one consultati...
... middle of paper ...
...workplace there would be a lower call out rate and absence rate due to preventable issues. If more employees were to take part in wellness practices there would be a higher rate of productivity in the company. Wellness is defined differently in some regions, but it is widely agreed that wellness means being in a healthy state and needing no medical attention. Health and wellness in the workplace is a vital part to a company’s success, and all employers should be made to participate in some type of wellness activity to promote more productive workers.
Work Cited
Lindahl, Ellen. Hudson Valley Business Journal, 11/26/2007, Vol 18 Issue 48, p21
Marshall, Lisa Colorado Biz 35.9 (Sept2008):p51 (5)
Terlep, Sharon Wellness in the Workplace. Employee Benefits Magazine.Sep/Oct2005.EBSCO host Vol.277 Issue 5, p84-88.
Employee wellness programs, also known as a “worksite wellness program”, are programs that are designed to promote and support the health, safety, and well being of a company’s employees. Wellness programs are meant to improve the health of the staff, their morale, and in turn also help improve their productivity. There are many components that make up employee wellness programs, for example; Health Screenings, Health Fairs, Fitness classes, Smoking cessation classes, and even wellness issue workshops. Employers have begun adopting these programs in hopes of helping their employees while they are at an age when health interventions can still help transform their long-term health choice. This paper will focus on trends found between employee weight and productivity, and the impacts these could have on a business overall.
The people in the workplace can be categorize into two groups: the employer and the employees. The employees work for their employer and in turn the employer has the duty and responsibility to ensure that the minimum safety requirements are met. However, employers are not required to provide health insurance benefits to their employees. More often than not, providing health insurance benefits is very costly to the employer and in an attempt to mitigate the costs, employers’ encourage employee participation in various healthy lifestyle programs and initiatives as well as providing incentives for their participation in such programs. These kinds of action are not always met with enthusiasm, some find it unreasonable to be expected to do so on their own time to change their lifestyle to suit their employers.
...nt. Wellness programs in workplaces have also become increasingly popular. These programs have not only demonstrated to be clinically effective but also cost effective. Companies are willing to invest to improve their productivity and decrease insurance cost. These programs will continue to grow in all fields and will require the need for more ND’s to participate. Promoting these programs can only lead to positive improvements from a patient to a corporate perspective.
campaign and technical assistance to promote the benefits of worksite health promotion. A new CDC
While the strain on the health care system is evidently a major issue, poor health of employees also has been proven to negatively affect the overall performance in the workplace. Alternatively, good health in the workplace has been proven to reduce absenteeism, reduce the costs of disability and dru...
How to keep it going strong? As previously noted, determining employees’ expectations and promoting programs can help create a more positive perception of the organization and that is important. Therefore, once the assessments have been completed to supply the base line data, employees’ needs and wants have been determined, and the leadership support needed is where it should be, one can almost “jump in” with the activity with an exception of one final item – assessment of readiness of the employees to change. If the assessments used in designing the wellness initiatives contained questions regarding this topic, this information will be at hand. However, it is important to note that employees may move back and forth in the stages of readiness. The employee needs to be “met where he is” and even small steps towards healthier lifestyles need to be encouraged (Kotter, 1996; Lowe, 2004). Additionally, communication is very important and it will be described a little bit later in this paper under its own heading.
Engaging employees and families in healthy work programs, regular check-ups and illness prevention strategies are smart investments.
Wellness in a workplace is a key factor determining how productive an organization shall be. This wellness encompasses two concepts, organizational well-being and the psychological well-being. Organization wellness encompasses collective well-being within the organization and this is brought forth by concepts such as embracing diversity, collaboration and fairness. Psychological wellness on the other hand involves the general well-being of the particular persons in the workplace. Essentially, psychological wellness of the employees is paramount over the organizational well-being. There is no general structure how this should be carried out- each organization may adopt its own specific model.
Extravagant wellness projects are been taken at corporates so as to ensure the wellbeing of the employees. It is a fact and an observation that on average employees spends the major part of their life cycle at work. Corporate social responsibility has by and large focused on maintaining “goodness” at workplace. The way we feel is reflected in the work we do.
Cost saving is one of the major benefits for employers to implement employee wellness incentive program. Researchers found that, over the last 15 years, preventable illness or disease makes up 70 percent or more of the total health care cost (Hall, 2008). Employers intend to use the program to reduce such preventable health risk, which can lead to expensive chronic diseases and high insurance costs. “According to a 2008 national survey by Harris Interactive, 91 percent of employers ‘believed they could reduce their health care costs by influencing employees to adopt healthier lifestyles,’ wrote two Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) experts”(Mello and Rosenthal 2008). An early proponent of such program, Johnson & Johnson, has greatly reduced its health care cost by adopting the program. The company estimates that wellness incentive programs have cumulatively saved Johnson & Johnson $250 million on health care costs over the past decade, and the return was $2.71 for every dollar spent from 2002 to 2008 (Berry, et al. 2010). According to the Kaiser/HRET survey 2010, positive feedbacks on the effective...
With the health care costs reaching high number there is no wonder we have a large number of absenteeism. So many wait to the last possible painstaking work day to decide to see a doctor about their aliment, and all of that could be prevented. Preventing oneself to have to take time off from work is one way to keep costs low. There are so many areas that need to be addressed when it comes to what is going to slow us down as a company. According to estimates by Dr. Jaime Claudio(1991), a corporate wellness consultant for Health Plus, a provider of health-care insurance, a comprehensive eating awareness and weight- management program designed to improve long-term habits could generate an 80% reduction in the incidence of potential problems caused by obesity in the workplace. These problems include hypertension, diabetes, coronary heart disease, and diminished work efficiency. Obesity is not the only eating disorder that is a problem, there is bulimia and anorexia. Smoking, drinking, substance abuse, and stress are problems that are brought into the workplace and stop productivity. We have to be aware of issues that are there but are not usually thought of as an illness.
Workers of every organization need to embrace the culture of living a healthy lifestyle rather than implementing specialized health programs and insurance plans (Goetzel, 2012). Coca-Cola Company initially perceived health and well-being as only integrated into the safety programs that employees are given. The company needs to distinguish between health and wellness from safety concerns. Many governments have encouraged wellness programs through the Affordable Care Act; this raises the legal limits on the penalties imposed on the employees by employers for the health-contingent wellness plans (Baicker,
Human resources will need to place emphasis on employee wellness my initiating programs that “include work-life balance processes, stress management, and therapy programs, and facilitating an open dialogue about mental health and illness to remove much of the stigma that plagues the conversation and ailments (Guppta, 2016).” By utilizing flexible work schedule options, demanding jobs with high-stress levels are possible because employees’ free time does not have to be sacrificed.
There must be a positive work environment where respect, the sense of belong which allows the employees to fully use their talents. Maintaining that healthy workspace is not only the responsibility of the HRM but employees also whose major roles include the healthy lifestyle and workplace
Another large debate in the issues and impacts of obesity is the responsibility of employer’s. Especially for those whose obesity comes from a sedentary lifestyle. Or perhaps need the preventative measures of keeping obesity at bay. A hot topic on the rise is whether or not employers should be mandated to give employees a work-out period in their schedule. The employers could offer employee’s incentives for utilizing resources (a company gym, discounted memberships, and dietician, walking a company track) and by using the resources keep costs low. Though initially it could be costly to take on the responsibility to offer extra incentives to employee’s it could offer long term potential savings. (Villareal, Apovian, Kushner, and Klein 2005) Those whose companies offer various programs and actively engage in them express more happiness, productivity, a greater quality of life, and overall better health. Better health allows for employee’s to serve their employers better. They use less sick pay, keep insurance premiums low, and are more likely to be in tune with their daily job. So while the initial cost may be high, the long term financial gain of a happy, healthy, productive team is hard not to invest in!