Employee Health Promotion

What began more than a decade ago as a pilot program in two locations, has now developed into a global plan for Motorola. The business’s Employee Health Promotion is run by the Global Rewards group consisting of more than 50 employees and funded by an annual grant. Programs are consistently assessed on their ability to deliver a positive return on investment and benefit the collective Motorola community. central, the program reaches more than 30,000 employees, family members and retirees. Employee Health Promotion Features:

• The business provides no cost membership for active employees to Wellness Centers located at 8 U.S. sites (retirees pay a small fee).
• Workers at locations without a Wellness Center receive $240 to help cover the expense of a membership at a qualifying exercise facility.
• In 2003, the business provided flu immunizations to more than 11,000 employees, dependents and retirees at 70 on-Site locations.
• Motorola holds hundreds of health education classes each year for employees.

Employee Health Promotion Results:

• Among employees who regularly used on-Site Motorola Wellness Centers or an alternate exercise facility the business saved $3.93 for every $1 it invested, according to data from 2000.
• Participating employees cost $6.5 million dollars less in lifestyle-related healthcare expenses than non-participants.
• Employee Health Promotion participants experienced annual Healthcare cost increases of 2.5%, compared to 18% increases for non-participants.

Obesity

Obesity, one of the fastest growing epidemics in America, is the most prevalent health risk among employees. Obese people are at a greater risk for several chronic diseases such as congestive heart failure, type 2 diabetes, stroke and hypertension. Facts:

• The prevalence of overweight and obesity has doubled since 1980.
• Two-thirds (66.3%) of the population is overweight or obese (using Body Mass Index as a measure); 32.3% are very overweight.
• Obesity has roughly the same association with chronic health conditions as 20 years of aging.
• More than 20% of very overweight employees have low morale, almost twice that of employees of healthy weights.
• Overweight and Obesity healthcare claims cost around $92 billion in 2002, 9.1% of all U.S. Healthcare expenditures.

Mental Illness

Often ignored or misdiagnosed, mental illness is one of the most disruptive health problems in organizations. It is unique in that its indirect costs (particularly presenteeism) are often higher than its direct healthcare costs. Facts:

• Approximately 20% of the U.S. population is affected by mental illness during a given year, with the most common form being depression; yet in 1997, only 23% of American citizens diagnosed with depression received treatment.
• In 2001 mental illness and substance abuse treatment cost more than $104 billion, comprising 7.6% of domestic Healthcare spending.
• Around 217 million days of work are lost annually due to productivity decline from mental illness and substance abuse disorders, costing $17 billion each year.
• Depression is one of the most costly workplace health problems, costing the U.S. $43.7 billion annually, including workplace costs for absenteeism and lost productivity.

Smoking

Though smoking rates have gone down slightly in the United States over the past decade, smokers still make up 21.1% of the population. For many organizations, restrictions on smoking in facilities means a greater loss of productivity during breaks, adding to the costs of the practice. Facts:

• The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) puts a $3,391 price tag on each employee who smokes: $1,760 in lost productivity and $1,623 in excess healthcare expenditures.
• Workers who use tobacco had about two times more lost production time (LPT) per week than employees who never smoked, a cost of $27 billion to organizations.
• An economic assessment found that a Healthcare plan’s annual cost of covering treatment to help people quit smoking ranged from $0.89 to $4.92 per smoker, whereas the annual cost of treating smoking-related disease ranged from $6 to $33 per smoker.
• The direct and indirect costs of smoking are estimated at $138 million per year.43 Finding Wealth Through Wellness 19 • Quitting smoking could decrease an individual’s Healthcare costs by $960 each year.
• Secondhand smoke costs the U.S. economy roughly $10 billion a year: $5 billion in estimated healthcare costs associated with secondhand smoke exposure, and another $4.6 billion in lost wages.
• From 1997-2001, tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke resulted in approximately 438,000 premature deaths in the United States, 5.5 million years of life lost, and 92 billion dollars in productivity losses annually.
• Smokers, on average, miss 6.16 days of work per year due to sickness (including smoking related acute and chronic conditions), while people that do not use tobacco miss 3.86 days of work per year.
• Each smoker who successfully quits lowers the anticipated healthcare costs associated with heart attack and stroke by an estimated $47 in the first year and $853 during the following seven years.