Gym memberships as part of your wellness program

It's no secret that over 50 percent of Americans are overweight. Obesity is the reason for 70 percent of medical visits. These medical visits are costing employers to have higher health insurance premiums. Obesity isn't the only reason why employers are being forced to pay more money. Several companies have smokers on their staff and they are also considered a high-risk person. Obesity and smoking combined is costing employers billions of dollars each year in lost production costs, sick leave, and health care costs.

Several companies have begun offering gym memberships to their employees as an extra incentive to lose weight and to get in shape. Since smokers and obese employees are costing billions of dollars, it makes sense to start investing in gym memberships to improve employee health. Studies have found that employees that take care of themselves live longer and don't become sick as easily as their un-fit co-workers.

When a company has a healthy staff, they are more productive and their appearance presents a positive image to the consumers. Offering gym memberships as part of your wellness program will show your employees that you are willing to invest in their health if they will put in the time to exercise and actually improve their health. Even walking for 30 minutes a day can increase your life expectancy by 2-5 hours.

The worry with investing in gym memberships is that your employees won't actually use them and you will lose thousands of dollars a year. To combat this, you should have your employees sign a contract stating that they will use the gym for a certain number of hours per month or else they will need to pay the full cost of the contract. Gyms normally have a tracking system of all the people that use the facility, so it will be easy to find out which employees are willing to invest in their health and which ones do not care.

In order to motivate them to use their gym contract, you need to give them time to exercise. Try extending their lunch hour by an extra 15-30 minutes. This extra time will give them enough time to get to the gym, change, exercise, shower, change, and get back to work. In 15-30 minutes time, people can get in a great workout and improve their health.

Another way to get them to use their gym memberships is to offer a fitness challenge to your employees. The incentive you use needs to be big, people will want to fight to get it. Some companies offer large cash incentives like $1,000 others offer smaller incentives like a half-day off work. The fitness challenge with a good reward will inspire many people to participate and to lose the weight.

Employers that invest in their employee's health normally see a huge return. In fact, investing $1 can produce a $24 return in production costs, sick leave, and health care costs. This is why it makes sense to pay $20-$60 a month per employee to give them access to the gym. When you select a gym, make sure it is a good one. They need to have early morning and late hours for your employees that want to exercise before or after work. The gym should also offer classes and be full of new exercise equipment. Several gyms offer classes like strength training, weight loss, yoga, spinning, and Pilates. These classes are designed to improve your physical and mental health. Participating in the gym will improve your stamina during work and throughout the rest of