The Cost-Benefit of Well Employees
The article is relevant in emphasizing the need to invest in healthcare and undertaking follow-up activities to ensure employees benefit optimally from employers’ healthcare investments. Employers have an obligation to establish defined wellness programs at workplaces to cover the employees to provide an additional health benefit. Implementing such programs ensures that the company can attract top talent, reduce turnovers, and keep employees healthy to sustain their productivity. By investing in healthcare, employers ensure that they adopt and maintain the behaviors and practices that reduce employees’ health risks, improve quality of life, and sustain and improve the employee’s effectiveness. Therefore while most employers invest massively in healthcare as an employee benefit, they should also concentrate on ensuring that they make an effort to ensure the employees benefit by staying healthy hence the effectiveness of the wellness programs and the investments in healthcare. Employers and corporations can play a more prominent role in reducing the employees’ health risk factors and can contribute to keeping health costs low. The result of effective health programs is low rates of absenteeism and improved productivity among the employees, which is a motivation factor. By doing so, the employers create a workplace of health that is sensitive to disease management, wellness, and preventive care programs, and educative support tools to tackle health risks. Therefore, in my opinion, the article is useful and is valid to all employers investing in healthcare as a form of employee benefit.
Employees spend many hours at the workplace, which may affect their ability to make healthy foods independently (White, 2005). The employers have to invest in company cafeterias and other vending machines that offer subsidized and nutritious foods. It ensures that healthy foods, which are usually expensive (Wiggins et al., 2015), become affordable to employees and can be easily accessed during the working hours. When there is limited access to nutritious food options, the employees will have poor diets, high chances of obesity, and other health complications related to dietary issues. Improving staff accessibility to healthy foods at workplaces promotes a healthy living, which minimizes the strain of diseases among the employees on organizations’ resources (Goetzel et al., 2007). The standardized eating habits ensure that employees reduce risky eating habits and adopt healthy lifestyles to guarantee their well-being.
Freedom from hunger and access to safe drinking water is the fundamental rights of employees at workplaces and essential aspects that enhance employees’ productivity and organizational competitiveness. Companies subsidize healthy foods only within their cafeterias and do not give them the freedom to choose the type of food and where to eat. Additionally, despite applying the subsidies, the nutritious foods remain expensive for the employees hence may not be accessible to all. The investments in the provision of food at workplaces sound great but rarely achieves its targets of healthy eating due to a lack of organizational efforts to ensure it is fully implemented and employees become healthier. The program is not equitably fair to each employee because the cost may remain higher for some employees despite the subsidies.
Employers have an obligation of maintaining a smoke-free work environment as a preventive measure against overspending on healthcare costs. Smoking behavior among employees leads to massive costs for employers in terms of lost productivity, absenteeism, medical expenses for complications. The costs are high, forcing employers to invest in programs that ensure the environment is smoke-free to ensure that most workers are protected at the benefit of the organization (Baker et al., 2017). The non-smoking programs are essential in helping employees quit smoking and adopt healthy living. The programs are beneficial to the company and the employees to cut healthcare costs and promote healthy lifestyles. The anti-smoking habits create an incentive for the people with such a habit to kick it out (Baker et al., 2017). Implementing the anti-smoke programs affects the employee who is addicted to such a habit and will require a lot of time to realize positive outcomes. Withdrawal effects may affect the employees’ productivity and attendance hence making the program not equitably fair because it forces some to quit smoking within a short period.
Physically active employees have a lower risk of getting diseases than those with sedentary lifestyles (Jirathananuwat & Pongpirul, 2017). Employers have an obligation to encourage workplace physical activities to promote healthy living and reduce cases of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity risk factors at workplaces. Jirathananuwat & Pongpirul (2017) noted that occupational health is realized by implementing the policies and practices that promote physical activities. A healthy workforce that remains physically active is associated with high productivity and low cases of absenteeism. All the workers may not implement the physical activity programs if close monitoring is not done. It is because some people are naturally lazy and will not be involved in such activities despite employers making big investments. Well-designed programs are equitably fair to all employees because they lead to the realization of positive health outcomes.
Heart diseases and cardiovascular complications cause health disparities and lead to death for affected people. Implementing screening and workplace health education ensures that employees understand about their well-being. Most people with cholesterol and high blood pressure do not have them under control, requiring continuous health checkups. The programs ensure that there is affordable treatment with regular checkup care to improve health well-being (White, 2005). The preventive health care programs at workplaces may include testing for blood pressure and cholesterol counseling and medical care institutions for the affected people to maintain their productivity level.
The programs require a massive investment, which cost the company a lot of money and may affect its profitability levels. The screening and testing may be conducted on several occasions to save on costs, yet it should be done consistently for effectiveness. The program is equitably fair to all the employees because it creates a platform for all the employees to enjoy the same medical services.
The employers need to appreciate the employees and emphasize their importance to the organization. In doing so, they inform the employees about the need to take care of themselves to maintain their health and keep away from risk factors. Employees’ savings can be used partially on disease prevention and disease management to ensure their productivity is not affected. Not all the employees can implement the information shared to them regarding the need to take care of themselves using savings they have generated.
The strategy is not equitably fair because of the difference in the savings and obligations of employees.
Health care programs that cover the employees should also be extended to cover the immediate family members. The well-being of the close family members of employees is a priority for the employers to ensure that employees concentrate on the work without being distracted. The health programs generate savings to the company by providing employees productivity is not altered at such time due to guaranteed healthcare to family members. The health programs have to be well inclusive for them to be successful. The majority of such programs do not extend to cover all the employees’ family members, hence making it hard to achieve its targets regarding employee productivity and absenteeism. However, the health programs are equitably fair because they offer much-needed support to all the employees in terms of health care.
Recommendations
I would recommend that employers invest information in company sports teams across all games. It will ensure that employees join the teams to engage in physical activities and compete with others both internally and externally hence creating a platform to bond and develop good relationships. The employees should be encouraged to use the stairs rather than the elevators to improve the physical activeness of employees by burning calories and promote healthy behaviors. The employers can do it by posting signs and notices for employees to use stairs. I also recommend employers to have in place employee field trips that incorporate team building and physical exercises.e It improves employee morale and creates momentum due to the healthy lifestyle that focuses on improving physical wellness and relieves stress and pressure of work. Exercise is medicine and prevents many diseases and keeps healthcare costs as low as possible.
Relevancy
The article is relevant in present workplaces because it offers an overview of the importance of establishing an employee wellness program. When employers invest in health care and undertake a close follow-up to ensure employees stay healthy, the organization benefits massively. Healthcare investment ensures that employees have access to quality, disease prevention, and management facilities while adopting healthier lifestyles. There are currently many health issues like pressure, blood pressure, and depression that require close attention and healthy living, and employees can benefit from the programs initiated by employers.
The occurrence of the Coronavirus pandemic has created the need for employers to decongest the workplaces as part of a health program. The programs can be implemented to ensure that a specific number of employees work from their homes to enhance flexibility and promote healthy working. Employees with health issues can be given such a priority and allow other groups to report at workplaces while observing healthy living in the form of sanitization, dietary, and continuous physical exercises.