Executives trade office setting for gym to step up wellness
Remember the days of junior high gym class? You quickly change into your gym clothes, throw on a ratty old T-shirt and Umbro shorts and hope no one pulls the fire alarm.
Well, welcome to workplace wellness.
With the rising costs of health care, more employers are getting involved with their employees' well-being, and for some of us, this may feel like a return to the middle school mayhem we called PE.
It also may seem a bit of an intrusion. Aren't the number of red blood cells we have, or the number of Double Stuf Oreos we eat, our own business?
Rod Shirk says no.
And that's because his employer helped save his life. Literally. Shirk, chief financial officer for the YMCA of Greater Des Moines, participated in his organization's first executive fitness program last year, where his cholesterol registered higher than normal.
This led him to schedule a physical, where he discovered high levels of prostate-specific antigen, a precursor to prostate cancer. After more tests he found out he had the disease and they may have caught it just in time.
"They saved my life. I don't know that I would have found it without that testing," Shirk said.
While not all employee health screenings result in life-saving revelations, more companies offer health screenings to keep health care costs in check.
"The number one thing you can do to help with health care costs is to encourage your employees to become more active and eat better," said Vernon Delpesce, president and chief executive officer of the YMCA of Greater Des Moines.
Health screenings are often the first part of any wellness program.
The Wellness Council of America estimates screenings can cost $25 to $70 per employee.
The YMCA is again offering health screening to more than 140 mid- to senior-level business leaders in the Des Moines area, double the number in the first year.
"We are challenging the leaders to set an example," Delpesce said.
Motivation for companies can include increasing productivity to reducing health care costs to reducing claim activity.
Yet even with the benefits, a survey by Des Moines-based Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive showed that employers are slow to embrace screenings. Only 10 percent of small- to medium-size employers have made on-site screenings available through work.
"Wellness is working and American workers realize participating in such programs won't only improve health, but will actually lower their personal health care costs," Jerry Ripperger, national practice leader of consumer health for the Principal Financial Group, said in a statement.
"When workers become personally involved in their own wellness, workers and employers alike begin to see a big impact."
The Y's Delpesce says interest in wellness and executive health programs "has been increasing because of rising health care costs."
Through their program, participants get guidance and education to help them get fit, in addition to the screening. The screening at the Y includes measuring body composition, sit-ups, push-ups, and flexibility, as well as cholesterol levels and blood pressure.
So, are HDL and triglycerides as important as EBITDA or return on equity?
Wellness programs from Principal Wellness Co. show a 2-to-1 return on investment for employers, according to methodology validated by Milliman Inc., a health care consulting firm.
"Health care costs should go down as people think about changing their diets and getting more active," Shirk said.
Perhaps even as important as cost benefits are the benefits that come from letting employees know you care about them.
The YMCA program is done in partnership with the Iowa Clinic and the Des Moines Business Record.
"For us here at the YMCA, if we are telling people to be healthy, we had better set a good example for our staff," Shirk said.
He has a chance this year to make it through the Y's entire executive fitness program, something he didn't get to do last year after his diagnosis.
"We are hopeful and confident we got it all," Shirk said.
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