Top Health Risks and Your Bottom Line

There are three health risks that your employees face as they work every day that can notably affect your profit margin when they are not addressed properly. Those health risks are obesity, tobacco use, and stress related problems such as depression. Not only do they directly affect the employees afflicted, but they can also provoke indirect issues related to healthcare and productivity as well as affecting your other employees and your business overall.

These top health risks are also the hardest to address in a workplace wellness program. Weight loss and smoking cessation require behavioral modification and require that the program be tailored to the individual. Stress related illness and problems are dealt with both physically and mentally and as such require professional training to help your employees overcome. When you are in the beginning phases of implementing a workplace wellness program, realize that you will have to deal with these top health risks first.

Obesity

Being overweight is hard on self-esteem, hard on you physically, and requires changes in behavior and habits to overcome. It isn't just a physical problem, it is a mental one as well, which means you, as the employer, need to supply the professional resources to overcome it. But why should you go to all that work?

The most obvious reason is what employing obese and overweight people actually cost you. Obesity causes all sorts of expensive health problems. In fact, it is the cause of 90% of all disease and illness covered by health insurance, and as a result what you and your employees pay for health insurance increases every year. There is a direct correlation between the rising cost of healthcare and the rising prevalence of cases of obesity and clinically overweight persons. On average, a company who medically insures their employees is spending $7,000 per year per employee on that coverage. There can be a significant decrease in that number if one of your workplace wellness objectives is overcoming obesity among those you employ.

Tobacco Use

Nicotine is one of the most addictive legal substances in the United States and as such, is one of the hardest health risks to overcome. Your employees have to want to quit in order to be successful. Resisting cravings comes on both a physical and mental level. Once again, professional assistance may be what it takes to help them stop. So if it is that hard, why should you require a smoke free work zone?

Smoking is a proven health risk and if you don't require a smoke free zone at work, the insurance premiums of everyone in the company goes up as a result. Smoking also causes those who smoke and those around them to have a lower immune system, thus creating more sickness, the easier spread of sickness, and more absenteeism, which can cost $700 to $1,000 per year per employee. Offering a smoking cessation program or subsidizing one will benefit your company in the long run, even if only a fourth of your smoking employees are able to quit.

Stress Management

There is a real need for stress management in the workplace, particularly when it comes to stress related injuries and illness. People don't pay as close attention to their surroundings when they are stressed and their immune systems are dampened. If lower rates on on-the-job injuries and less sick days don't appeal to you, then you don't know how they are affecting your bottom line.