Inspiring employees to participate in wellness programs

Since smoking and obesity lead to higher health insurance costs for employers, some employers have started offering wellness programs. Wellness programs encourage employees to start living an active, healthier lifestyle and to give up their personal choices that are impacting the company. Employers lose about $13 billion dollars on employees that are overweight and cause the health insurance costs to rise along with the cost to pay for their time off and lost production costs. Smokers are no different from obese workers because they tend to take about 7 more sick days a year and have weakened immune systems due the carbon monoxide they breathe in. Some of the common health problems smokers and obese individuals face include the following:

• Increased risk for cancer
• Diabetes
• Lung Disease
• Heart Disease
• High-blood pressure
• Joint pain
• Chronic knee pain
• Bronchitis
• Back pain leading to major back surgeries
• Asthma
• Shortness of breath

Since these employees are costing the company billions of dollars, it is important to talk to them about their lifestyle choices. Most employees are willing to improve their physical health, even if they move from the "obese" section to the "overweight" section. Even dropping 10 pounds will do wonders for your health. So how can employers inspire their employees to participate in wellness programs? There are a few routes you can take, the first route is to offer incentives to employees, and the second route is to threaten employees with higher insurance premiums and penalties for their lifestyle choices.

A lot of companies are taking route # 2 because this helps them to recoup some of the costs they are paying to the health and life insurance companies. Since these individuals are at an increased risk for so many health problems, insurance companies have found that they have a shorter lifespan. Many of the insurance companies may not even insure them due to their lifestyle choices. Other insurance companies will insure them, but they will charge them outlandish rates. The entire company will be placed into a high risk pool and everyone at the company will be forced to pay more money just to have insurance. This doesn't seem fair to the employees that are living active and healthy lifestyles. By telling your un-healthy employees that you plan to start taking more money from their paychecks, they may decide that it's not worth it to lose $100 or more a year because of their lifestyle choices. This may be the push someone needs to finally quit smoking or to drop 30 or more pounds.

Route # 1 is a great way to inspire employees to participate in wellness programs because everyone wants to get a reward for their efforts. Financial incentives are a great way to motivate people to start living a healthier lifestyle. You can even try offering time off work or increased responsibility with the company. Even giving employees an extra $25 a paycheck for living an active and healthy lifestyle will encourage their un-healthy co-workers to drop the weight or give up smoking.

Whatever route you take, you need to be a good support group for your employees. Changing your lifestyle is difficult, especially if you have lived this way for a long time. It takes a lot of dedication and motivation from your employees to quit smoking or to lose weight. By encouraging them and being there for them during frustrating times, you are showing them that you care about their physical and mental health. You might even consider offering free health checks once a year for your employees to show them your dedication to living a healthy lifestyle.