Invest in your employees – why Office Health & Wellness Programs Fail

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Office health and wellness programs matter. Every dollar spent on workplace wellness programs can reduce health care costs for employers by $3.27, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Health-related absenteeism also costs the economy $84 billion in lost productivity every year. The CDC reports that “a modest reduction in avoidable risk factors could lead to a gain of more than $1 trillion annually in labor supply and efficiency by 2023.”

So, why doesn’t every employer have an awesome health and wellness program? And why do so many health and wellness programs fail to deliver any appreciable return on investment, like PepsiCo’s did last year?

Reason No. 1: A Lack of Resources

Jane Wang, CEO of employee health company myHealthSphere, thinks she knows why. “I think most employers believe that [health and wellness programs are important] in principle, but in reality, there’s not a lot of resources given to them,” she says. “The reason for that is because there are things that are more pressing, such as profit or productivity. We know that employers don’t use [wellness programs] because they don’t see direct ROI from them.”

Time and time again, however, successful health and wellness programs do show ROI. Wang says that most employers don’t see the ROI because it’s often not immediate. For example, employers may not realize their gains in productivity are coming from lowered absenteeism rates. They may attribute the gains to other initiatives, new processes, or talented employees.

Reason No. 2:  more…