Do Workplace Wellness Programs Save Employers Money?

http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9744.html

by spindritf • 12 years ago

25 18 12 years ago

shenoybr• 12 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong, but takes a very narrow view when it says ROI on Health Care costs. I think they overlooked the possibility that healthier employees (and employee's family) could help provide an ROI in terms of productivity?

b2themax• 12 years ago

Exactly. Some things aren't just about money.

colechristensen• 12 years ago

ROI based on employee productivity is very much about money.

But you're right, a great employer does care about more things than just money-above-all.

aaron6952• 12 years ago

They mention productivity.

It's pretty hard to measure rate of work output and wellness programs effectiveness on this so they are kinda doing it by proxy.

The point they are making is people are consistently lying about this issue. Wellness programs don't pay for them selves according to their figures even though many organisations claim they do.

And if we are going to go forward on this issue we need to start talking about the real facts.

Such as they suggest targeting people who have serious issues rather than everyone.

Make real change not token change for the sake of it.

ams6110• 12 years ago

launching educational campaigns to use the stairs

Sounds great until you compare accidental injury statistics from falls on stairs vs. elevators.

jessriedel• 12 years ago

Luckily there's a fix for that too. Behold, Los Alamos National Lab's infamous music video to encourage people to use handrails when they're on the stairs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDsTc2oWGSI

whiddershins• 12 years ago

I think the reason wellness programs aren't as effective is because most health claims aren't scientifically validated. Therefore much effort is spent trying to convince people to change behavior which may not have positive impact on health. In fact, many of these behaviors may cause more harm than good.

I also think people subconsciously suspect much of the advice is of dubious validity, which may be why the public at large is relatively unaffected by health recommendations. There is a trend in public health to move away from educating the populace and towards regulation, especially food distribution and composition. Regulating industry can affect food consumption much more dramatically than attempting to get people to change their behavior voluntarily.

But I don't think enough people are examining the recommendations themselves, and demanding very good science to back up the advice. Luckily for all of us, food manufacturers have an economic incentive to fight against dubious science ... often maligned for fighting regulation, I think in this case they have a point, and without that economic incentive I might be prevented from buying potato chips.

And what kind of world would this be without potato chips?

Retric2• 12 years ago

Only looking at direct healthcare spending not indirect costs such as sick days. the overall ROI was $1.50 — that is, a return of $1.50 for every dollar that the employer invested in the program.

They add that wellness programs do reduce time off which would further increase savings, but ignore the fact that healthy people are more productive and employees view perks as additional pay which aids retention. Which suggests wellness programs are vary cost effective.

PS: RAND is a political organisation that looks for facts supporting there conclusions rather that doing actual research.

aaronblohowiak• 12 years ago

Calorie counting + weekly weigh-ins. Keeping a food diary, journaling or full-on counting is repeatedly shown to be among the best long-term weight loss and maintenance. It does not require substantial alteration to the diet, just portions. There are no prohibitions and you can eat out and about with your social groups as normal, making compliance pretty high. For most people, exercise is useless for weight loss[1]. The educational impact of complying with a calorie counting program can have lasting effects on food choices even if the person stops adhering to the program as rigorously. Example: a bowl of strawberries has fewer calories than a slice of cheese. If you get in the right mindset of optimizing the 'yum' and the fullness per calorie, it impacts you even on 'cheat' days.

1: It is incredibly easy to out-eat any moderate exercise regime; a single soda can undo a half hour of running. I suspect that most people who are in the obese and overweight zones do not have the cardiovascular or muscular fitness to make any meaningful dent in their caloric budget. That being said, fitness is important for general health and there is definitely a range of BF% where exercise goes from inconsequential to critical for body composition purposes.

Calories in / calories out is NOT the whole story. But it is enough of the story and compliance is easy enough that it has the best results in the long term.

gress• 12 years ago

Nor surprising, given that the strongest predictor of occupation on health is autonomy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitehall_Study

Retric2• 12 years ago

Whitehall was not looking at overall heath. It studied cardiovascular disease prevalence and mortality rates of British male civil servants aged 35 to 55 and as such is hardly representative over overall heath for the total population. Whitehall II was slightly broader in scope but was not looking at overall heath.

The primary health risks under investigation in the Whitehall studies include cardiovascular function, smoking, car ownership, angina, leisure and hobbies, ECG measurements, and diabetes.

Also, A Finnish study conducted a cohort study similar to Whitehall, but with greater analysis of the worker's stress. The study determined that decision autonomy was not a significant contributing factor to coronary heart disease, but that lack of predictability in the workplace was a significant factor. In the Finnish study, "predictability" was defined as high stability of work and lack of unexpected changes, and was found to correlate closely to employment grade.

GabrielF00• 12 years ago

The recently published RAND Wellness Programs Study, which included almost 600,000 employees at seven employers, showed that wellness programs are having little if any immediate effects on the amount employers spend on health care. This has been further confirmed by our new analysis of 10 years of data from a Fortune 100 employer.

They're looking at seven enormous employers. Can their findings really be applied to all employers? There's a lot of variance between employers (average salary, average age of employees, region where employees are based). I'm not sure that you could reasonably compare employees at, say, WalMart, with employees at Goldman Sachs or Google. There's also presumably a lot of variance between these different programs. Is it possible that some programs are just badly executed?

clumsysmurf• 12 years ago

I wonder if benefits obtained by many of the behavior changes prescribed are simply wiped out by sitting too much. It seems sitting wipes out benefits of even strenuous exercise.

But how many employers will pay for treadmill desks?

emn13• 12 years ago

These conclusions sound utterly meaningless - as in; useless from a policy perspective. Their core claim is that lifestyle management programs don't reduce health care costs - but so what? Are they measuring productivity? Motivation? Impact on other employees by example? Employee loyalty? Sick leave of participating employees and/or others they come in contact with? Stress+burnout?

And when it comes to costs, did they consider management distraction - as in, if you're doing this, what isn't the organization (management) focusing on?

This is a pointless article.

bluedino• 12 years ago

The Wellness program at my job is ridiculous (Kersh Wellness). They mandate that we cannot having vending machines with snacks (chips, candy, etc) but they are perfectly fine with us having 2 giant vending machines full of 240-calorie soft drinks.

How does that make any damn sense? A Snickers and a cup of water are going give me more energy, and more of a 'full' feeling than a bottle of Pepsi.

malandrew• 12 years ago

There's a very obvious solution that doesn't require any special programs, give employees time and incentive to get exercise and make sure your office is right next to a gym or other place to get exercise.

The biggest predictor I've found to getting regular exercise once you have a gym membership is how far you live from a gym. When someone tells me they go to the gym regularly I ask how far they live from the gym and it is typical that the gym is extremely convenient for them (usually within a few blocks in a city or a few minutes drive in the suburbs).

I started asking this when I noticed the impact of convencient on my exercise habits. I myself was in the best shape of my life when I lived two blocks from a gym. It made going to the gym an "impulse" option for which I didn't have to set aside time in my schedule. I went practically everyday, but not at a set time in the day. It's easy to maintain a daily habit that you can do at any time during the day. It's much harder to maintain a habit that you only have one or two slots of time available in the day to do, since every other concern that can't wait and need to be done during your exercise slots threatens making exercise a habit.

For example, I think both Asana and Heroku have it right by making wellness accessible. Both have yoga rooms and classes daily. I would be much more likely to participate if a wellness activity like yoga were made that accessible.

If the gym or other physical activity isn't convenient and there isn't time set aside for it, it usually won't happen.

aaron6952• 12 years ago

give employees time and incentive to get exercise

Isn't this specifically what they are talking about? Giving all employees time / subsiding gyms doesn't pay off.

Plus this concept, if it was easier suddenly I'd do yoga or gym more probably isn't true. It's an excuse employees use, but make it easier then they'd find another excuse.

And Gym/Yoga isn't for everyone. Many offices / organisations have gyms and wellness programs with yoga and very little of the staff use them. And those that do are as the article points out probably people who don't need the help as much anyway.

herf• 12 years ago

But - costs from disease are not the only cost of being unhealthy!

For instance, healthy sleep makes people perform better at problem solving tasks and avoid depression. These effects are realized extremely quickly. Exercise has similar benefits.

How fast people can solve problems? Do they pick fights with their colleagues? These things hit the employer's bottom line too, whether or not you measure them.

You get what you measure. RAND needs to measure ROI better.

Do Workplace Wellness Programs Save Employers Money?

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