Fit 4 You Athletic Training!

Atlanta Business Chronicle
Friday, July 17, 2009

Wellness strategies vary in cost and complexity
Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Lisa R. Schoolcraft Staff Writer


Employers interested in boosting the bottom line should consider helping employees with their waist lines.

Corporate wellness programs not only help employees, but boost productivity, help curb health-care costs, lower absenteeism, and can be a good recruiting and retention tool.

But there are a number of factors for companies to consider before starting up a wellness program — including current health-care costs, experts say.

“In this economy, investing in employee health is not a cost,” says Lew Schiffman, president of Atlanta Health Systems. “The real cost is paying for treatment of preventable illness and the concurrent diminished job performance.”

A wellness program is an organized program designed to assist employees and their families in making voluntary behavioral changes and reduce their health risks and enhance their abilities to perform, he said. “An effective wellness program is about health and job performance.”

“I think initially employers look at [wellness programs] because of their rising health-care costs and don’t look at the productivity of having a healthier employee,” said Tom Atwood, benefits director for Acuity Brands Inc. (NYSE: AYI). “We’re in the manufacturing business and on-the-job injuries are a big issue. If employees are healthier, we can have fewer job injuries and lost-time issues.”

Derek Frazier, president of Southeast Wellness Inc., said he believes any program to improve wellness will “be at least a 2-to-1 return on investment. Heart attacks, strokes and simple things like high blood pressure and diabetes cost big bucks for organizations but can easily be contained with medication if the company can figure out a way to keep their employee on it every day.”

Ernest Ross, a master trainer and owner of Fit4You Athletic Training LLC, set up a comprehensive wellness program for employees of DeKalb County schools in 2008, which includes nutrition plans for each participant and exercise programs like yoga, kickboxing, boot camp and step aerobics.

“We feel active adults equal active kids,” Ross said.

Although less than a year old, the program is seeing results.

“We’ve had clients in this program lose over 30 pounds,” he said.

He’s also collecting health data and assessments each month and participants are reporting sleeping better, having more energy, and having less absenteeism.

Currently, the teachers pay $100 per month for the program and Ross hopes the school system will eventually pay for the program.

Wellness programs vary, as do the costs, so before choosing one, employers should collect data on health-care costs, said Schiffman, who has designed custom wellness programs for employers for more than 28 years and has worked with more than 600 companies, including AGL Resources Inc., Colonial Pipeline, and the cities of College Park, East Point and Augusta.

“Whoever is going to be the sponsor of the program will need to present the business case to top management explaining why they should fund this and actively support it,” he said. Look at the data to see “the leading health-care costs drivers and look to see if they are caused by preventable illness and people’s lifestyle choices.”

Managers and supervisors may need to be educated about why a wellness program is a good strategic business decision, Schiffman said. And they need to understand a wellness program is a process, not a product, that is going to create the solution.

Frazier agrees that change needs to begin at the top.

“If the top of the hierarchy doesn’t understand that changes need to be made and are not willing to change for fear of employee resentment, then they are not keeping the company’s best interest at heart,” he said.

“Many companies believe that because they have a coaching program, a fitness center or annual health fairs that they have a wellness program,” Schiffman said. “Those are wellness activities, and are all very good, but they are not a strategy.”

Wellness programs can be simple, like making employees aware of healthy lifestyle choices, he said, to medium programs with intervention programs involving smoking cessation, diabetes care and weight management.

Then there are comprehensive health management strategies, which tend to be the most expensive, Schiffman said.

“But what’s expensive is paying for treatment costs of preventable illness,” he said. “The goal of [a comprehensive plan] is to change the culture of the organization so that optimal health becomes a company value.”

While a comprehensive plan costs the most, it can see the greatest rewards, both financially to the company and to the employee, he said.

“You are either going to pay for prevention or you are going to pay for treatment,” Schiffman said. “Medicine manages [a health] problem and wellness programs are designed to prevent the need to have to use the health-care system.”

Wellness programs also boost the corporate culture of a company, Atwood said.

“Employees feel better about a company when a company does something to help their personal life and financial life,” he said. “Health care gets more expensive and employees are paying a larger share.”

If a company’s wellness program helps keep an employee out of the doctor’s office “it’s like putting money in their pocket,” he said.


Reach Schoolcraft at lschoolcraft@bizjournals.com.

Lisa R. Schoolcraft
residential, retail real estate reporter

Atlanta Business Chronicle
3423 Piedmont Road
Suite 400
Atlanta, GA  30305

404-249-8006 (direct)
404-249-1058 (fax)