For years, workplace wellness professionals have been asked the same question: “What is the return on investment?” It is a reasonable question. Organizations want to know whether the resources they invest in employee wellness produce measurable financial results. Executives often look for reduced healthcare costs, lower absenteeism, and improved productivity as evidence that wellness programs… Continue Reading ›
During a corporate slowdown, organizations often focus heavily on cost control, restructuring, and operational efficiency. However, one area that directly influences productivity, morale, retention, and long-term business resilience is employee wellness. A slowdown can create increased stress, uncertainty, burnout, and disengagement among employees. If organizations ignore these challenges, productivity frequently declines further through absenteeism, presenteeism,… Continue Reading ›
Employee wellness has moved far beyond step challenges and lunch-and-learn sessions. Today, organizations are expected to support physical health, mental well-being, social connection, financial security, and meaningful work – all while demonstrating measurable business impact. Yet many wellness programs still underperform, not because the intention is wrong, but because the foundation is weak. Image by… Continue Reading ›
I just went through a list of key humanitarian arguments for wellness programming in our last post, but we also need to play our economic cards as well! Remember our series on how to measure the five major economic variables that wellness programs impact in work organizations? Health plan cost, sick leave absenteeism cost,… Continue Reading ›
Presenteeism is the fifth type of health-related cost that employers commonly experience. In this recent series of posts we have looked at health plan costs, sick leave absenteeism costs, workers’ compensation costs, disability insurance costs and now presenteeism cost. This is a newer concern for employers. Research has demonstrated that when employees decide to… Continue Reading ›
This part four of my five-part series on getting the complete picture on the economic impact of your wellness program. Last week I covered workers’ compensation, the week before was on sick leave, and the first week was on health plan costs. Today we are on to disability costs… Not all employers offer… Continue Reading ›
I am doing a five-part series on how to measure the impact of your wellness program on five key employer costs. I started with health plan costs, and last week covered sick leave costs. Today’s post is on measuring the impact of your wellness program on workers’ comp costs. All employees are covered… Continue Reading ›
American workers are absent from work due to sickness an average of 8 days a year. Wellness programs have been documented to reduce that amount by 25% or an average of 2 days a year. That reduction in absenteeism represents economic return that is potentially attributable to your wellness program, but it takes some effort… Continue Reading ›
Last week’s post made the case for broadening the economic argument for your wellness program. As I noted before, the five economic factors that respond to wellness programming are health plan cost, sick leave absenteeism cost, workers’ compensation costs, disability management costs and presenteeism costs. I will take the next five posts to dig into… Continue Reading ›
A major mistake many worksite wellness practitioners make is using a narrow economic rationale for wellness programming. As I emphasized in my post last week, communicating the impact of your wellness program in ROI terms is critical. However, I have seen many managers who set out to communicate the ROI of their efforts focus narrowly… Continue Reading ›