Four times per year, the shipping scale in the middle of VSM
Abrasives’ sandpaper-customizing plant weighs not only products fit
to be mailed, but also the company’s employees. “If we
haven’t gained weight, we get $25,” says Stephanie August, a
human-resources manager at the O’Fallon, Missouri, firm. “And
if we maintain our weight for a year, we get a paid day
off.”
VSM’s voluntary weigh-in exemplifies a growing trend, where
companies crushed by health-insurance increases are implementing wellness
programs to help employees lose weight, quit smoking and work out. Yearly
U.S. health-insurance costs related to obesity alone account for $7.7
billion, according to the Washington Business Group on Health.
Cash incentives are sometimes used to lure workers out of their
cubicles. Roger Seehafer, an associate professor of health promotion at
Purdue University, says companies must get involved in changing the
behaviors that make their employees ill. “Health behavior should be
a matter of choice, but I believe in stacking the deck. Companies are in
a position to effect change as perhaps few other sectors are,” says
Seehafer. Workplace programs ensure higher participation rates and offer
opportunities for positive reinforcement.
Financial incentives are unlikely to bring about behavioral changes
for everyone, adds Seehafer. Cigarettes are a good example, he says,
because the increase in the cost of smoking caused only some people to
quit. In the current programs, the corporate vice president may not be as
motivated to go after the $25 bonus as the minimum-wage clerk. Seehafer
thinks programs offering a variety of incentives are more effective than
cold cash.
When wellness programs are well designed, the biggest cash prize of
all goes to the company’s balance sheet. In 2002, an analysis of 22
studies showed that the return on investment, in the form of reduced
health-care costs, was a staggering 300 percent. The programs also reduce
absenteeism and “presenteeism” (where workers show up but are
too sick to really produce), Seehafer says.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Oklahoma built a financial incentive into
the wellness program it uses for its 1,300 employees, which offers Weight
Watchers at Work meetings. Employees write checks to participate in the
16-week program. If they attend at least 14 weekly sessions, they get
their checks back. Since the meetings began in 1999, Blue Cross Blue
Shield employees have collectively lost nearly 20,000 pounds.
Eighty-four of those pounds used to belong to Julie Whitewater, 28,
a claims examiner. “We keep one another on track,” Whitewater
says of her coworkers, who peek into each other’s lunch boxes.
“If the Weight Watchers meetings hadn’t been here at work, I
never would have started.”
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