University Business - May 2008 - (Page 39)

HUMAN RESOURCES Wellness Program Checkup Determining the return-on-investment for programs meant to keep employees ﬁt and healthy By Carol Patton S INCE WELLNESS PROGRAMS were introduced to the workplace more than 30 years ago, colleges and universities have oﬀered employees a variety of free health perks and programs ranging from weight loss coaches and gym memberships to self-help classes. Yet even the most comprehensive wellness program isn’t worthwhile if only a handful of employees participate or, even worse, if it has minimal impact on employee absenteeism, job productivity, and employer health claims. HR executives at higher ed institutions are scrutinizing their wellness programs, asking themselves such questions as: How can we boost participation rates? What is our return-on-investment (ROI)? What types of programs produce the most ROI? Unfortunately, not many know the answers. But that’s slowly changing. At more IHEs, HR leaders are ﬁnding creative ways to drive participation to record numbers, then examining their eﬀects on speciﬁc areas such as employee attendance and health care claims. Their hope is to identify and expand programs that oﬀer high ROI, eliminate those that don’t, and ﬁll in the gaps to help employees reach health goals. Some institutions build participation by oﬀering experiential programs. Miami University (Ohio) invites its 3,600 employees to participate in Hawk Walk, a two-month program in which employees walk to a diﬀerent location each week, explains Jay Kimiecik, director of employee health and well-being at the school. So far, hundreds of employees have participated. The walks lead to a variety of fun places such as an equestrian center where participants are educated about horses, or Studies show how effective money can be at helping people change bad habits or undesired behaviors. a community facility where they learn hiphop or line dancing. The university plans to oﬀer health screenings, health coaching, and other traditional wellness activities, but Kimiecik says Hawk Walk is becoming its signature wellness program. HR is dividing employees into three diﬀerent groups—high, medium, and low users of the school’s wellness program—to compare participation rates against health care claims for each group, adds Carol Hauser, Miami’s senior director of HR. That’s when the truth about these programs will be revealed. Are they eﬀective? If so, HR may start oﬀering ﬁnancial incentives to increase participation. “We’ve read that you can get as much as a four-toone dollar return,” Hauser says. MONEY MOTIVATES In an eﬀort to reduce soaring health care claims, many schools are paying employees to get into shape. Recent studies show how eﬀective money can be at helping people change bad habits or undesired behaviors. Last year, for example, researchers at RTI International and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studied how ﬁnancial incentives encouraged people to lose weight. Researchers monitored more than 200 university and community college employees in North Carolina for more than three months, discovering that the larger the ﬁnancial incentive, the greater the short-term weight loss. Participants who received $14 per percentage point of weight loss were ﬁve-and-a-half times more likely than those who didn’t receive any money to lose ﬁve percent of their body weight, according to RTI. A previous RTI study found that obesity costs employers between $400 to $2,000 per obese employee. So ﬁnancial incentives that help workers develop and maintain a healthy lifestyle may be a school’s best defense against rising health care costs. But ﬁnancial incentives come in diﬀerent shapes and sizes. Like their counterparts in the corporate world, IHEs are doing everything from lowering health care premiums and eliminating copays to distributing quarterly checks to employees for participating in wellness or prevention activities. Here’s what a few schools are doing: • Purdue University (Ind.): Each of Purdue’s 12,500 employees can receive an additional $150 per year by completing an annual health assessment, says Mindy Paulet, the school’s administrative director of Carol Patton is a Las Vegas-based freelance writer who specializes in covering HR issues. universitybusiness.com May 2008 | 39 http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2008

University Business - May 2008
Contents
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Editor's Note
Stats Watch
People Watch
Sense of Place
Viewpoint
Money Matters
Financial Aid
Human Resources
Community Colleges
Art Appreciation
HR Directors Speak Out
Marketing: The Big Questions Answered
Top 5 Reasons You Should Attend EduComm 2008
What's New
Calendar of Events
End Note

University Business - May 2008