How Much Money Would It Take to Get You to Lose Some Serious Weight?
Many employers are betting they can find your price. But does any of it work?
The perks that companies attach to wellness programs come in a variety of forms and sizes. Some reward employees just for having a health evaluation or enrolling in a class. Others require measurable exercise achievement. Some companies offer money, some vacation trips. Some refund the cost of Weight Watchers classes. Others reduce health-insurance premiums…
One of the largest effort to date was an observational study by Cornell University. It looked at seven employer programs and found that the average weight loss in most was little more than a pound. [emphasis added]
I sometimes wish that my company had an in-house gym that I could use during lunch. We’re small, so that’s not a possibility (and the gym in our building went out of business last year). I know several people who work for larger companies that make good use of their gyms.
This demonstrates the idiocy of exclusively employer-based health benefits. Whenever we learn of reports of successful “health & wellness” programs, they appear to take place in businesses with large factories or campuses, e.g. hospitals, Caterpillar, Pitney-Bowes, where the architecture and culture increase the likelihood of success.
I recall reading the story of a large company where the CEO loved to walk around the campus at lunch. So, he instituted a program whereby any employee who wanted to walk with him received a free pedometer. The employees “competed” to add up the miles and shed pounds. Plus they got to talk to the CEO and each other about business issues. (Even though the program was voluntary, I’ll bet they invested in a lot of legal advice before launching it: Can you imagine the potential for discrimination lawsuits?!?).
Well, good for the CEO and those walk with him, I say. However, to think that a small business can execute such a program, or that ObamaCare can impose incentives nationwide that will get everyone off their butts, is absurd.
We’re spending a hell of a lot of dollars collectively for one pound per person.
When designing programs to change employee behavior, the Health & Wellness companies I’ve spoken to tend to favor carrots over sticks. I’m not sure if that’s a marketing decision or an HR decision or because carrots are better motivators than sticks. I’ve seen evidence of more firms (Scotts as I recall) using sticks when it comes to smokers. As was mentioned in an earlier post, the best combination of carrot and stick is letting workers themselves bear the full cost of bad behavior and reap the benefits of good behavior. If a firm’s benefit package accomplishes that, they employer (theoretically) doesn’t care how the employee behaves.
Where is the evidence that any of this pays for itself — whether carrots or sticks?
At least they are wasting private funds.
As John Graham alluded to, many Health & Wellness programs are partially team building exercises. The workers in a department are divvied up into teams (or each department is on the same team), with each member given a pedometer. Prizes are awarded for team effort as well as individual effort. Peer pressure boosts team work (and exercise).
I’ve discovered the best incentive for both weight loss and getting in shape is not economic nor is it focused on health status. I’ve just been notified of a high school reunion in September and, believe me, I’m suddenly more tread-mill motivated than I’ve been in a long time.