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Today's high-paced world, with all its pressures and demands, is taking its toll on our health. Modern-day lifestyle diseases are on the rise. These include cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and depression, which cost individuals, employers and medical schemes dearly both in terms of productivity and direct medical costs.
"Research has found there is a need, more than ever, for wellness interventions in the workplace," says Pro Sano Medical Scheme's clinical operations executive Dr James Arens. "Employers should be actively and urgently seeking new ways to decrease absenteeism, reduce medical claims costs, and improve employee productivity, recruitment, and retention."
Many employers credit the implementation of corporate fitness programmes with productivity gains in areas such as reduced errors, improved efficiency and improved decision making. For maximum impact on employee health, a comprehensive wellness programme should focus on:
Programmes don't necessarily need to be extensive or expensive as those of the large corporations, says Dr Arens, in order to have an impact on employee health and health care costs. Smaller organisations can make inexpensive changes in the work environment by considering the following:
Finally, and perhaps the most important advice of all, says Dr Arens, is to keep it going! Employees easily become bored with the latest company initiative. Make sure your wellbeing programme doesn't become a T-shirt and memory stick exercise - here today, gone tomorrow. Make it "the way we do things around here".
Becoming proactive in your employees' health makes very good business sense, says Arens. And promoting wellness programmes can have a substantial impact on profitability by reducing health care costs, increasing productivity, decreasing absenteeism and providing a positive, healthy work environment.
Wellness programmes may be one of the few employee benefits that pay money back to the organisation and significantly improve bottom-line performance. With a few simple changes, just watch the vitality and energy of your employees start to soar.