Here’s One Of The Best Investments Your Company Can Make
March 31st, 2007 · by Bob Meyer · No CommentsBy Bob Meyer
One of the most important assets of your company are motivated and healthy employees. Many companies are recognizing the fact that healthy employees are a real asset, and they’re looking after their health. It can be a real payoff.
According to the Omaha, NE-based Wellness Councils of America (WELCOA) more than 81% of American businesses with more than 50 employees have some form of health-promotion initiatives. The most popular are fitness programs, back-card techniques, stress-management courses and programs aimed at smokers.
“Worksite wellness is crucial to a company’s success—what organization can’t afford to reduce work stress, increase productivity and contain health care costs?” says Linda Kenedy, Vice president of WELCOA.
“Wellness research demonstrates bottom-line impact—lower health care costs, reduced absenteeism, higher productivity, reduced use of health care benefits and, most importantly, increased morale and loyalty.”
Programs like self-defense classes, reduced rates for personal trainers and neck and shoulder massages keep employees voluntarily participating and motivated, and can be obtained on trade.
Experts agree that good health may not be enough to get employees motivated so some companies offer incentives as encouragement to stay fit. And awards such as glow-in-the-dark running vests, health magazine subscriptions, T-shirts and neck and shoulder massage certificates are used to get employees involved.
Another option is to reward your employees for taking positive action, by providing those who will go in for regular checkups, get flu shots, etc., with restaurant scrip or gift certificates for their actions.
The bottomline: These expenditures—most available on barter—could very well be one of the best investments your company makes this year!
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 9:05 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
