The role of workers fitness in making the workplace better

By Gina Smith


Most of us work because we have to make a living somehow. We all have different jobs. A few of these jobs involve working in offices and others outside. Most of us work a nine to five. Then there are daytime jobs and also nighttime. What may people who study these things know for sure is that a healthy person is a better employee.

The big question arises, is it cost effective?

One huge corporation, Amway, has 3,900 local employees. According to this company it gets back two dollars for every dollar spent on employee's health. How do they justify that? Most employees who have participated in their wellness plan have lowered their medical and drug claims by eight percent. Some have lost weight. One woman who works for Amway lost 85 pounds in 18 months. She has more energy than ever and that definitely translates to a quality work atmosphere for both her and the company. It is an recognized fact that such workforce oriented fitness program take as long as three years to start giving returns. This is because of the time taken by people to change their habits.

On the reverse side of things, those employees how do not participate in some sort of program to improve their health up their healthy costs by close to 23 percent.

Flexco is another firm which has taken the initiative to implement such health oriented program for their employees. Because the program was so successful, this Grand Rapids company was able to move to a high-deductible health program cutting annual premium costs by $100,000. That definitely affects the bottom line. In addition, the company helps pay the employee deductibles.

As an incentive, the employees earn wellness points when they join this program. This will help them reduce their expenditure on health costs by about 850 dollars. This acts as an incentive for the employees to get enrolled in this. It also helps that the employee is volunteering to get in the program rather than being forced to get in.

They can combine this program with the overall goals of the company. This integration helps the company overall. It would help the company to attain its overall business goals, if its employees are willing to stay healthy and active. Furthermore, it also enhances the working atmosphere of the company.

Often employees are unhappy when they are asked to undergo tests for this, but it often helps to diagnose certain deceases before they become bad.

These two examples show that it makes a lot of sense to encourage employees to stay healthy, whether you do it through the company or you encourage them to do it on their own. Other companies have had success giving their employees free membership to weight watchers online. The examples shows that you can significantly lower the bottom line when you have healthier employees. This makes for a better workplace.




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