Reviewing an organization’s benefits costs lets organizations create targeted programs to address key areas of cost. Undertaking a drug cost analysis could highlight preventive programs that may help reduce prescription drug use and reduce overall benefits costs on benefits renewal with insurance companies.
Wellness at Work Organizations that have started measuring and monitoring the ability of their health and productivity programs to support financial management and operational efficiency goals are seeing a positive return on investment. Take this utility company. With more than 3,000 employees dispersed To address these problems, the company implemented an attendance Here’s what it realized after less than one year: • a 38% decrease in the average duration of closed cases for STD • a 27% decrease in the number of Workers’ Compensation Board days lost per claim (from 33 to 24 days over all cases); • a $1 million decrease in costs (annualized); and • a 69% decrease in new long-term disability cases (from 26 to eight per year). |
Operational efficiency
To remain competitive, businesses must operate resourcefully wherever possible. This means reducing costs, streamlining processes and redirecting resources previously needed to manage operational tasks to other initiatives.
Strategic and integrated health and productivity practices can help centralize access and support to health and productivity resources, and measure effectiveness of departments and managers in reduced health-related costs. Outcomes include increased productivity, improved predictability in staffing, better utilization of assets and improved compliance to process and procedures.
Employee health and engagement
EAPs, an essential component of wellness programs, provide a significant, immediate and long-term ROI based on their timely ability to identify and provide support and resources to resolve physical, mental and social issues. Physical health resources, including nutrition, naturopathy and health coaching—as well as family, financial and legal support services—help prevent employee health from deteriorating to the point of it becoming a distraction at work, negatively impacting employer costs.
As many studies have shown, engaged employees are more productive, while low engagement can result in excessive absence. Other benefits of health and engagement are more difficult to quantify but provide substantial ROI. These include reducing job stress, increasing job satisfaction and morale, increasing employee ownership of health, enhancing productivity and performance and reducing presenteeism.
Risk management
Health and productivity programs can help organizations effectively manage risk. Large costs can be averted by an employer’s ability to satisfy legal and collective agreement requirements and to reduce liabilities associated with absence and disability.
Compliance with the Occupational Health and Safety Act and the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, fulfilling duty to accommodate, respecting confidentiality, handling grievances and managing legal risks are all part of the ROI of a strategic health and productivity approach.
In the end, workplace wellness is about offering best practice programs and tools to generate expected results, giving the programs time to assess their impact, and clearly and effectively measuring and monitoring key metrics. This must all be done economically and efficiently, and have the employees’ health and engagement in mind. With that in place, senior management support—the driving force behind any successful program—is more likely and will allow organizations to invest in what they have and fine-tune their services to maximize ROI. BC
Karen Seward is executive vice-president, business development and marketing, with Shepell•fgi.
kseward@shepellfgi.com
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© Copyright 2010 Rogers Publishing Ltd. This article first appeared in the June 2010 edition of BENEFITS CANADA magazine.