Employers weigh in on workplace wellness programs: Panelists share challenges, success stories in workplace wellness
By Anne Polta, West Central Tribune, Willmar, Minn. | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
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But the findings were confirmed in the next report: For employees who participated in Duininck's wellness program, health care claims went down, while for nonparticipants the cost rose.
The story was among several shared at a panel discussion Tuesday on bringing wellness into the workplace, where average working-age Americans spend the majority of their day. Hosted by
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The company has 7,000 employees spread across seven plants, farms and more, she said. "We have a very diverse workforce -- many languages, many backgrounds, many cultures."
The wellness program, which began in 2011, started small by offering a token health insurance premium discount to employees who achieved health goals such as wearing their seat belt 100 percent of the time and getting eight hours of sleep a night.
"These are all things every single person can do," Tjaden said.
By 2013, the program had expanded to include "carrots" such as routine no-cost physicals, eye exams and flu shots in exchange for the premium discount.
Duininck is in its fifth year of a branded wellness program. One of the keys to its success has been knowing what the employees' needs are, Skordahl said.
For instance, many of them work on road construction in remote locations, she said. "Their access to healthy food might be the local convenience store. They might sit in a truck all day."
The company uses a positive approach, combined with biometric screening and health risk assessments, to help educate and motivate workers to make health-related changes, she said.
Other local employers have chosen to bring in
ReYou relies on biometric screening, risk assessments and no-cost individual health coaching to help employees set goals and maintain progress.
"We're client-driven. They tell me what avenue they want to go down first," said
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In fact, a recent education series for
ReYou is looking at long-term sustainability after its initial grant funding runs out next year and is developing a "know your numbers" program that will provide a customized risk profile to help employers target their wellness efforts.
It's important to find a balance between motivating employees and coercing them, the panelists agreed.
Although the Duininck wellness program has an 80 to 85 percent participation rate, it's entirely voluntary, Skordahl said. And she reassures workers that the program complies with HIPAA privacy laws.
"There's always a little hesitancy with this personal information being associated with work and employers," she said.
At the same time, workers sometimes need "a nudge" to improve their health, otherwise it won't happen, Skordahl acknowledged.
For a wellness program to be successful, feedback from employees is also important, according to the panelists.
"Anytime you get involvement and employee buy-in, you get better results," Tjaden said.
Employee feedback has identified health topics "that I would never have thought of," Skordahl said.
Return on investment is a difficult number to pin down, the panelists agreed. Direct savings can be measured in lower health care costs but there are also indirect savings in the form of less absenteeism, higher productivity and lower worker's compensation and short- and long-term disability costs, as well as better quality of life for individual workers, they said.
"We all know that wellness is the way to go. ... We know that that's the right thing to do," Tjaden said.
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