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essay on genetic information nondiscrimination act
essay on genetic information nondiscrimination act
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Wellness Programs and the Effect on the Workplace
A wellness program is the employers’ line of attack to cultivating their employees’ health. Wellness programs can range from a multitude of company- sponsored activities in a wide range of areas. Some of these areas are: dieting, exercise, checkups, quitting tobacco programs, and programs to promote physical fitness. Wellness programs can often offer financial incentives to get their employees motivated in participating in the program. (Alic, 2012)
The history of employment wellness dates back to 1879. The Pullman Company of Chicago created employee athletic association. Shortly thereafter in the 1880s the president of National Cash Register was known to meet employees for morning horseback
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A Health Risk Appraisal is a questionnaire that reviews individual lifestyle practices, some examples are: exercise, smoking, and seat belt use. This questionnaire can give human relations some idea of what health concerns that needs to be addressed. The Health Risk Appraisal can often be provided to a companies’ human relations department free of charge through is health insurance company. If a Health Risk Appraisal cannot be provided by the companies’ insurance provider it can usually be purchased at a low cost from another source. One of these sources is the University of Michigan. While doing this, human relations needs to be sure that they are following Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) and Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) regulations while conducting the Health Risk Appraisal. Instead of the Health Risk Appraisal, human relations can conduct an employee interest program to see what employees are interested in for an employee wellness program. (Wellness-program, …show more content…
Some no cost ideas are no tobacco use at work and employee walks. Other options are promote healthy options in vending machines instead of junk food options. For instance a company could charge only 25 cents for an apple and sell a cupcake for $1. An employee walking program can be set up with a pedometer challenge. The employer could provide a safe place to store bikes and encourage employees to use the stairs instead of elevators. Employers can also purchase heathy food for meetings instead of junk food and hold Weight Watchers meetings. More expensive options are to purchase gym memberships and even construct on site fitness facilities. (Wellness-program, 2015)
Advantages to Employee Wellness Programs Employee wellness programs are a great advantage to employers for many reasons. They can lower health care expenses and healthier employees have less sick days. Healthier employees achieve a higher rate of productivity and are absent less often. They also reduce injuries, workers’ compensation, and disability-related expenses. Employee wellness programs also increase employee loyalty and morale. (Wellness Programs: What are the general steps, 2015)
Disadvantages to Employee Wellness
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.
Healthy and thriving workforce is key asset to any organization and the workplace has significant impact on people’s health and well being. Most of the companies, especially in the current economic climate, are actively seeking ways to reduce operating costs. Yet most organizations are ill prepared to meet the challenges associated with the changing demographics of their workforce.
campaign and technical assistance to promote the benefits of worksite health promotion. A new CDC
There are a substantial number of policies in place in hopes to reduce obesity rates as well as encourage active living. However, there seems to be a large gap between why the policies are implemented in hopes to achieve a set outcome, and the knowledge of appropriate and effective steps to go about producing the desired change. Additionally, while there are policies in place with the intent of reducing obesity rates, there are few to none that with the intent of promoting active living within the workplace.
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.
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,
Health promotion is the process of improving health status of a person and prevention of disease by enabling the person to take control of their health. It is not just the absence of disease (Maben, & Clark, 1995). Health promotion is commonly used term in health care world, and in current society the promotion of health has greater significance, especially with the rise in consumerism. Health promotion is a vital concept for nursing, symbolizing notions that nursing is related today. Nurses are being urged to take a health promotion role, and are deemed by others as an ideal role for them. It is therefore crucial that nurses cognize the meaning of health promotion and also what is expected from them by undertaking this
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
Health promotion is a guiding concept involving activities intended to enhance individual and community health well-being. It aims at increasing involvement and control of the individual and the community in their own health. It acts to develop health and social welfare, and to reduce explicit determinants of diseases and risk factors that unfavourably affect the health, well-being, and productive capacities of an individual or society, setting targets based on the size of the problem but also the possibility of successful involvements, in a cost-effective
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.
This study investigated the barriers and enablers of physical activity in various workplaces. Thematic analysis that ensued provided relevant clues into understanding workers’ plight in the workplace with regard to actively participate into physical activity. Sedentary behavior settled in with time, given the amount of hours workers spent at work daily. It was equally important to bring into light factors that influenced workers behaviors so they could inform recommendations about physical activity for workers’ moral, motivation, and keeping healthy.