Transcript Employee Wellness: Your Company is Under Attack

Employee Wellness:
Your Company is Under Attack
Donna Emmert
Absence, Health, and Productivity
January 2014
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Employee health in the workplace
• When employees are healthier, they are happier and when they are
happier, they are more productive
• A review of more than forty studies indicates that on an average,
workplace wellness programs reduce workers' compensation costs by
about thirty percent (30%) in workers' compensation and disability
claims costs.
• Return on Investment (ROI) studies have indicated that for every $1
invested in a workplace wellness program, the benefit to cost ratio is
between $2.15 and $5.64 in a one-to-two-year period. This includes
$3.48 health care costs savings and $5.82 absenteeism savings.3
What could your company accomplish if
everyone was healthy and happy?
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2 CDC
1 http://greatermd.bbb.org/eight-steps-to-creating-a-workplace-wellness-program/
Prevalence and Trends Data http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/page.asp?yr=2011&state=US&cat=OB#OB
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3Well
Workplace University: How to Demonstrate a Return-On-Investment Session 2
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Health risks
Health risks are associated with increases in health care
• Absenteeism
• Disability rates
• Safety incidents
• Workers’ compensation claims
• Presenteeism
In order to be an industry leader,
the “people capital” must be
smart, adaptive, creative, and productive.
These requirements are accomplished
only if they remain healthy and safe.
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Traditional Safety and Health
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Concerned with reducing hazardous exposures
OSHA standards
Unsafe acts & conditions
Self inspection
Incident investigation
Right to know
Lockout/tag out
Behavior based safety
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Accident investigation
• Root cause analysis:
– Method
– Material
– Personnel
– Experience
– Training
– Health status
– Fatigue
– Stress
– Physical ability
– Environment
– Equipment
Evidence indicates that work-related factors and health factors
contribute to workers’ compensation losses
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Health protection versus
Health promotion
• Health protection focus:
– Safety
– Risk management
– Workers’ compensation claims
– Exposure to workplace hazards and toxins
• Health promotion focus:
– Healthy lifestyles
– Prevent disease and disability
– Encourages physical activity, healthy diets, weight and stress
management, tobacco cessation, alcohol reduction, and elimination
of substance abuse
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Integrating programs
Traditionally workplace health protection and health promotion programs
are compartmentalized:
• Occupational Safety and Health: Health protection
– Reduction in job risks rely on employers
– Management is responsible for worker health and safety on the job
– Chemicals, noise, heat stress
• Human Resources / Benefits: Health promotion
– Reduction in life risks are based on individual behavior change
– Protected by EEOC, ADA, GINA
– Smoking cessation, weight loss, physical activity
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Advantages of integrated health and
safety programs
• Employee’s risk of disease increases by exposures to both
occupational hazards and behaviors (increased toxicity by smoking)
• Employee’s at highest risk for hazardous conditions are more likely to
engage in risk-related health behaviors. They:
– Missed an average of three additional absence days per year
– Reported five times as much psychological distress, including
depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances
– Have more symptoms of physical pain, poorer general health, and
lower job satisfaction
• Integrating health promotion and accident and illness prevention plans
may increase participation and effectiveness for high-risk workers
(gains credibility)
• Benefits the organization and environment (positive and caring image,
reduced turnover, improved morale, improved productivity)
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Disadvantages of integrated health and
safety programs
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Time
Privacy
Compliance with ADA, EEOC, GINA, HIPAA
Turf protection
Reporting relationships
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Health, safety, and productivity
management
• Poor employee health is responsible for unnecessary health, safety,
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and productivity losses
Employee health can be improved through evidence-based, wellimplemented and measureable health, safety, and productivity
management interventions
Employers need to take a role in delivering health education,
awareness, risk reduction, and counseling to support the program
Employee health improvements will reduce medical care costs, and
improve worker safety and productivity
Successful programs result in positive return on investment
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Health, safety, and productivity
best practices
• Main purpose is to deliver products and services that are competitive in
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the market, not manage employee health. Support the mission by
acting as a strategic partner to help attain business objectives.
Management collaboration is necessary for an interdisciplinary
approach. It is necessary to remove the silos
A team of champions, passionate, with a vision to “make things
happen”, should lead the effort.
Senior management should be key members of the team to “walk the
walk” and engage others.
Engage health promotion and wellness staff in the process in order to
communicate the links between employee health and the effectiveness
of the organization.
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Health, safety, and productivity
best practices (continued)
• Emphasize improving the quality of life versus cost-cutting. “Doing the
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right thing for the employees”
Have a plan and include data measurement, reporting, evaluation, and
return on investment from the beginning.
Communicate the purpose, tactics, and results throughout the
organization.
Work in progress: Constantly realize areas of improvement, new ideas,
and approaches.
Have fun! “Positive energy”
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Supporting data
The cost of poor health to the U.S. economy Is more than $575 billion
$ Billions
Wage replacement (absence due to workers’
compensation, illness, and short and long term
disability)
$117
Medical and pharmacy (workers’ compensation and
health benefits)
$232
Lost productivity (absence due to illness or
presenteeism)
$226
$575
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Health risks affecting workplace
performance
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High blood pressure
Obesity
High cholesterol
Alcohol and drug use
Excess stress
Physical inactivity
Smoking
Morale
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Nutrition
• Nutrition choices are directly related to four of the top ten causes of
death in the United States:
– Heart disease
– Cancer
– Stroke
– These make up 70% of the total deaths in the United States
• Many of the ailments are avoidable – and not by taking drugs
• Most chronic diseases can be avoided by controlling what is consumed
• Set an example:
– Food for meetings
– Vending machines
– Lunch and learn sessions
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Obesity
67% of population is either obese or overweight
• Obesity costs employers estimated $150 billion in lost productivity
• Obese workers miss 450 million more days per year than employees
with Body Mass Index (BMI) < 30
• Employers pay 42% more for medical costs for obese workers
• Comparing two employees with the similar health conditions, it costs an
average of $1,200 more for the obese employee versus the employee
with normal weight
• Obesity impacts the life activities of bending, walking, digestion, cell
growth, etc., to qualify as a disability or perceived disability
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Inactivity
• Only 20% of jobs require a moderate level of activity compared to 50%
in the 1960’s
• Over 70% of Americans don’t exercise enough to maintain health (30
minutes of moderate intensive activity daily)
• The total direct and indirect costs of inactivity is $147 billion
“We do not stop exercising because we grow old – we grow old because
we stop exercising”
Dr. Kenneth Cooper
“The Father of Aerobics” Cooper Institute
Fitness that Works
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Inactivity – Sitting Disease
• For people who sit most of the day, their risk of heart attack is about the
same as smoking” ~ Martha Grogan, cardiologist, Mayo Clinic
• “Today, our bodies are breaking down from obesity, high blood
pressure, diabetes, cancer, depression, and the cascade of health ills
and everyday malaise that come from what scientists have named
sitting disease … Every two hours spent just sitting reduces blood flow
and lowers blood sugar, increasing the risk of obesity, diabetes and
heart disease.” ~ James A. Levine, MD, PhD
• “Prolonged sitting should be considered within occupational health and
safety policies and practices just like other elements of posture.” ~
British Journal of Sports Medicine
• Sedentary lifestyles result in 15% of all healthcare costs
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Exercise
Exercise has a role in the treatment and prevention of more than 40
chronic diseases:
• Reduces heart disease by 40%
• Reduces incidence of diabetes by 60%
• Reduces high blood pressure by 50%
• Reduces mortality and recurrence of breast cancer by 50%
• Reduces the risk of colon cancer by more than 60%
• Improves endurance
• Improves muscular strength and tone
• Improves bone health
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Balance: Preventing Falls
• We start to lose our ability to balance at age 25
• A strong core usually means better posture, less back pain and
improved performance during physical activity
• Improved balance reduces the potential for falls
• Include balance training in workouts:
– Change base of support
– Stand on one leg
– Close eyes
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Tobacco use
• 23% of the populations uses tobacco
• Insurance costs to treat diseases from tobacco use from 24 years to
death are:
– $106,000 for women
– $220,000 for men
– This is $40 in healthcare costs for every pack of cigarettes smoked
• Tobacco users die 12 to 14 years earlier than non-tobacco users
• Benefits from smoking cessation can be realized in as little as three to
four weeks
– Blood pressure can correct itself in three to six months
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Substance abuse
• Employers that abuse drugs and/or alcohol are more likely to:
– Spend work time on non-work related activities
– Sleep on the job
– Have higher absenteeism/tardiness rate
– Have a work-related injury
• 15% of US workers reported using or being impaired by alcohol at work
at least once in the past year (19.2 million
• Up to 40 percent of industrial fatalities and 47 percent of industrial
injuries can be linked to alcohol consumption and alcoholism.
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, www.samhsa.gov
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Aging and the work force
The Facts:
• Of approximately 300 million people in the U.S. today, 63 million are
over age 65, and 10 million of them are still working.
• The number of older workers will double in the next 10 years due to
extended careers, second careers and longer life expectancy.
• Variables affecting aging include genetics, physical fitness, nutrition,
mental stress, sleep deprivation, lifestyles, smoking, and alcohol and
drugs.
• As people age, endurance decreases, fatigue and “presenteeism”
impacts productivity
• Muscle strength peaks between age 25 and 35. Between 50 and 60,
most people can only produce only about 75% to 85% as much
7/18/2015
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Stress at work
• 77% of Americans are stressed at work
• Economy has caused businesses to cut back
• Employers pay 50% more per year in health costs for stressed
employees
• Absenteeism, turnover, insurance, medical costs, lawsuits, workers’
compensation, and diminished productivity equals $300 billion in stressrelated costs to United States businesses per year
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http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/99-101
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Implementation strategy - Assessment
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Determine what kind of program is needed
Identify goals and objectives
Conduct management and employee interviews
Gather data on employee health
Review data on health care and claims (medical and pharmaceutical)
Consider additional data such as demographics, attendance, workers’
compensation, turnover
• Complete integrated health assessment report
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Implementation strategy - Planning
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Senior executive support – Policy statement and budget
Wellness committee
Establish plan
Identify interventions
Data collection and analysis
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Implementation
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Strategies
Interventions
Timelines
Budget
Operating Plan
Feedback
Communicate successes
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Evaluation
• Baseline measures (from assessment)
• Benchmark
• Justify conclusions
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“No company will be successful
in the global marketplace
without healthy and productive people. If we
don’t do it,
someone else in the world will
and our competitive advantage
and our way of life will be lost”
Dr. Dee Edington
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Questions or more information
Donna Emmert, CPDM
Sr. Risk Engineer
Absence, Health & Productivity Services
Zurich Services Corporation Risk Engineering
Office: 940-321-5240
Cell: 972-768-3952
[email protected]
© 2011 Zurich Services Corporation. All rights reserved.
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