Workplace Benefits of Health and Fitness Programs
Furthermore, fitness programs can benefit companies far beyond a spending stand point. There are many benefits of incorporating fitness into your daily routine, and some people are unaware of the impact it can have on every aspect of their life. Making health and fitness a priority in your life can result in dramatic change. Creating a healthy lifestyle through fitness and nutrition programs and then following through on those programs with self-assessment practices and goal setting techniques can significantly decrease self-defeating behaviors not only in the workplace, but in day-to-day life as well. There are many different ways to get involved in fitness, and the benefits are well worth the time and effort invested in the process. Recently, many businesses have begun to take notice of the benefits that incorporating a health and fitness program can have within their company. From a business perspective, it would help everyone within the company increase production and feel more confident in the workplace. Increased fitness levels can improve motivation, focus, productivity, and cohesiveness in the workplace; thus creating a better team environment and increasing the overall efficiency of the company.
There are numerous benefits and companywide payoffs for implementing fitness programs. First, the implementation of company-wide health and fitness programs can result in reduced costs of insurance and employee health care cost. Employers are beginning to actively seek candidates that are in better physical shape because they do not have to spend as much on health care fees. With just a limited amount of working out, studies show that a significant positive impact can be made on ...
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...e companies invest in fitness programs”
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Direct Observation during access to food. Settings varied but study was conducted over 28 days.
This is an essay written in the MIT Sloan Management Review that presents the correlation between businesses and the issue of obesity in order to persuade businesses to take action in regards to preventing the issue. Therefore, its target audience is anyone who currently works in business or plans to do so in the future. In this review, the author begins by citing four internal and external reasons for which businesses should care about obesity: self-preservation, public criticism, employee productivity, and opportunity. The author proceeds by providing an idea as to how businesses can assist in reversing the trend. In order to do so, he analyzes what he considers to be the two sides of the obesity problem: physical activity and food consumption.
Employees of The Fit Stop are responsible for assisting customers that may be extreme physical pain. There are some intrinsic rewards attached to being an employee at The Fit Stop, as employees are able to see the benefits their position is offering customers. Although this is a great reward, this isn’t necessarily enough to motivate employees to learn about all of the pieces of equipment or attempt to sell as many pieces of equipment as possible.
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 categorized 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 actions 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.
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...
The current health care changes and trends, in Houston Texas that are impacting the general population in nutrition are rapidly approaching us. For instance;
With America’s obesity rate on the rise a CrossFit gym that welcomes beginners, thoroughly teaches and explains each exercise and can offer a group atmosphere that’s welcoming to individuals who have never worked out before could help decrease the obesity rate. The group aspect of CrossFit is beneficial because it’s a motivator to keep attending workouts and to reach the goals you have personally set. Attending a CrossFit gym could also be a motivator because not only is the coach pushing them to get through the workout but the other members of the class are pushing each
Black, Tamara. 2008. Exercise and Fitness in a U.S. Commercial Gym.Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International.
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.
As the media bombard the American public with unrealistic images, a new obsession with fitness has hit the markets. With more and more people aiming to lose weight, the fitness industry has been pressured to accommodate the high demands for efficient and entertaining workouts. This greater variety of work-outs hitting the market is a result of the diverse types of people who are trying to get in shape. Health clubs are no longer only for those 20-30 year olds who are in competitive training or those who need to be fit as a job requirement. Instead, these facilities are now packed with people of...
The second ideal is healthy weight, this includes access to “tools and resources that any employee can use to help reach and maintain a healthy weight” (HealthAhead). The final portion of this program is Healthy in a Click, this is a computer based program offering access to information regarding living a healthy lifestyle including, recipes, wellness topics, and ways to challenge each other to fitness related goals (HealthAhead). This program is clearly working to help avoid downtime as the corporation has shown a 12% decrease in health related absenteeism, which can result in a huge gain regarding overall output per employee (GE Goals and
Since the dawn of humanity, exercise has been crucial for physical survival. In recent times, however, exercise is losing its significance to human survival. Some would argue that it already has lost its significance, and as exercise becomes less important, people exercise less. According to fitness.gov, only 33% of adults receive the recommended amount of physical activity each week (citation). Clearly there is a problem. However, there is still a fraction of the population that exercises diligently. Why do these people stick with it? Exercise has countless advantages that are still extremely important to our lives. So even though the need of exercise may appear to be diminishing, the practical effects should be enough to encourage people
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!
It essential that managers are aware of their employees physical needs while in the work place to include ensuring t...