Workplace Wellness

Words: 1368
Pages: 6

According to Managed Care Outlook, tobacco users miss 6.16 days of work per year due to sickness, including tobacco-related situations, while non-tobacco users only miss 3.86 days of work per year. Businesses also pay an average of $2,189 in workers’ compensation costs for smokers, compared to $176 for non-tobacco users. Employers in the United States could save up to $8 billion in building operations and maintenance costs if they created smoke-free indoor air policies, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Studies also found that each employee who uses tobacco will cost employers an average of $1,897 in lost productivity each year. (Aspen Publishers)
Medical insurance premiums are increasing drastically for Sparkle Industries,
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was conducted in 2013 by the RAND Corporation funded by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Labor. The study found that about 51 percent of all U.S. employers with more than 50 employees offer some form of wellness program, and the larger the employer the more likely it is to have a wellness program. Some reasons for this are larger employers have more resources to carry out these efforts, more employees to partake in them, and larger ability to gather data in order to justify the capital spending. The study revealed that about 39 percent of employers with 50-100 employees have some kind of wellness program, and about 91 percent of employers with more than 50,000 employees offer a wellness program. The RAND study also discovered that the lifestyle and disease management programs are the most popular and the least popular are programs that make contextual changes to the workplace. Another significant discovery of the study relates to lifestyle management programs, which are mostly offered by large employers. Of these lifestyle management programs, the most commonly offered are pertaining to fitness, weight management, and smoking. The RAND study found that only 21 percent participated in fitness programs, 11 percent participated in weight management programs, and seven percent participated in smoking cessation programs. From this information, it appears as though there are many large employers that are offering some sort of wellness program, which shows their commitment. It also looks like employees are not doing their part and participating in these programs as much as they should. (Grillo,