Company Wellness and Communication in Fresno - Essay Example

? Company Wellness Plan Wellness programs are very important in any workplace. However, they need to be seen effective for them to be considered right. Wellness programs sound like the right thing to do and employers may have intentions, but many employers do not do more than the minimum efforts. However, many employers’ misunderstanding is that wellness initiatives are not good business investment (The Healthcare Intelligence Network, 2006).However, as a matter of fact, wellness programs are the best investment company can ever have. For example, wellness program may help an employee improve or even help him or her avoid taking some diseases, in the case where the employer can not provide programs in their companies; the employee may end up getting such diseases. This can conclude with sad results to both the company and the employee. Firstly, the employee’s health is affected and may be worsened slowly, a situation that may lead to him/her fail to perform well. Thus, in this situation it means that he would loose his job, that becomes to have less income and which leads high rate of poverty. On the other hand, the company may loose a qualified and profitable employee that could help the company move forward. Therefore, it is the fact that, effective wellness program creates a strong return on investment (IRO) in the short-term as well as long-term (Rosen, 2004). For example, in the short-term, (6-18 months), it can affect workplaces absence. In the long-term, it can affect an average of $3 for every $1 spent (The Healthcare Intelligence Network, 2006). Beneficial managers choose wellness programs based on what the workers need. It’s obvious that employees will benefit from such services; on the other hand, the earliest advantage of managers of arranging to meet employee health needs is if workers could be screened or treated quickly, they could be more productive on their job. Furthermore, it is obvious that preventive measures which are offered by wellness programs might lower healthcare cost even keeping employees at work (The Healthcare Intelligence Network, 2006). However, managing healthcare costs requires a risk management strategy. The goal of wellness programs then is not only to make workers feel good, but also to move participating employees from high risk category of contracting diseases into lower risk categories (The Healthcare Intelligence Network, 2006). Nevertheless, as in the case of Fresno, disability incidence for example has increased from 10/1,000 employees to12/1,000 even with availability of wellness programs. Probably, this is because some employees resist changing even in the face of such wellness programs. On the other hand, there are also workers, who are health conscious, and they don’t want to participate in the incentives. In the case of the benefit manager in the Fresno Company, it is also very important to incorporate the senior management in the process of emphasizing on the wellness programs in the company. Getting senior management on board doesn’t mean getting approval to try some wellness programs. It means getting management fully behind a workplace wellness program that becomes part of workplace culture (The Healthcare Intelligence Network, 2006). The more the management promotes and participates in workplace, the more successful the program will be. Therefore, the first and most important thing is to create awareness campaign among senior management and ensure continued commitment and support and visibility of the wellness initiatives. In fact most work place wellness programs do not result in a positive ROI without support from the senior management (Rosen, 2004). This is true for any work place that aims to change employee behavior which should be the basic goal of every wellness program. The other important issue to a new appointed benefit manager should be evaluation of the existing wellness programs in the company. This involves overview of operation style and their effectiveness and deficiencies associated with them. For example, in the case of Fresno the current benefit manager should speak out on previous efforts in order to reduce the company’s rising medical and disability costs. However, he should not only be concerned with reduction of the rising medical and disability costs but also the effectiveness of these programs on the employees as well. One of the best ways to ensure reduced medical and disability costs would be by improving the participation by the employees in the programs (Rosen, 2004). Although the programs are well funded and supported by the company, many employees ignore them, which cause company loss of funds or lack of utilization of the funds. The fact that the employees avoid participating in the programs leads to dealing with diseases and disabilities which could have been avoided if the workers participated to the wellness programs (The Healthcare Intelligence Network, 2006). This therefore leads to low productivity by the employees due to absenteeism caused by sicknesses or even in cases where the employees are present but lack concentration in their work. On the other hand, the benefit manager would also be deemed right to cost shift (do away with) the wellness programs that are considered ineffective to the employees and or maybe replace them with more effective alternative programs (Rosen, 2004).However, in order to accomplish his mission, the benefit manager needs to be more patient in order to demonstrate change in participation and impact to utilization. According to the company profile, no gyms are in place. It would be appropriate if an onsite gym or workout programs were added in the company which would be used by employees for their body fitness. This would be a first step to reduce medical costs. Such a facility would help employees improve their fitness what they learn from health programs. In most cases, health programs would offer theory work and leave the employees to practice what they learn from the programs. However, most of them may lack facilities such as gyms and this leads to lack of implementing health programs appropriately, which means that the program becomes inefficient, therefore loss of funds. Therefore, it would be appropriate for the benefit manager to “walk the talk” by initiating such facilities (Rosen, 2004). Although some wellness programs may be effective, they may not be applicable for the long-term basis. For example, the average tenure for engineers in Fresno is 3 years, in this situation it would be appropriate for the benefit manager to review programs for such category of employees and recommend ones which offer short-term services. However, it does not mean that the programs would be removed from the company; it’s only that the programs needs to be reorganized such that the ones that offers long-term services would be meant for employees like those in the manufacturing section who serve the company for longer time. On the other hand, those programs that offer short-term services should be meant for employees who serve the company for a shorter period. According to the Fresno health program results, medical cost have increased 15% each year in both the PPO and EPO and the trend is expected to be 12%. In this case, it only means that either the wellness programs are more effective or the company is spending more than required. Therefore it is important to review these programs and come up with more effective and less expensive programs. However, with cases of hypertension, asthma, and musculoskeletal diagnosed to represent 60% of the medical costs which is clear that the wellness programs have little effect in the company. Therefore the benefit manager need to ensure that much attention is directed to these three diseases and maybe even reduce costs on wellness programs that deal with diabetes. The report also indicates that disability incidences have also increased from 10 out of 1000 employees to 12 out of 1000 employees. Since these incidences are higher in the manufacturing facility, it would be important that much of medical costs are directed to it and probably lower costs in the other facilities. Another big barrier making wellness program to be used better is communication challenges. For instance, many employees fail to attend or participate in the wellness programs because of feeling of embarrassment (Teresa, 2003). Many employees feel that their health matters are personal. They may fail to admit that they could benefit from wellness programs, thus they limit their involvement. In some cases, they feel that involvement of their employees in their personal matters is not desired (Teresa, 2003). From time to time, they don’t trust counselors on the basis that they may disclose their health problems. Accordingly, it should be mentioned that communication is very necessary in the social environment at the work place. Therefore, it is important for Fresno to create a healthy workplace basically focusing on communication. This can be achieved by creating a workplace that promotes democracy by creating an atmosphere whereby the employees can air their views (Teresa, 2003). This can be achieved by taking into consideration cultural backgrounds of all the employees. On the other hand, it would be appropriate if the benefit manager together with senior managers initiate a program that would let employees receive daily motivation updates on how to remain healthy. They can associate with wellness program providers to work and improve this approach. This can be done using messaging system by which the employees would receive messages tips on how to remain healthy (Rosen, 2004). They can also have nutritionist who would offer advises on how to eat healthy. In addition, weekly invitation of clinical officers including physicians and therapists to offer support to the employees would be appropriate. To conclude, it is apparent that communication in Fresno needs some improvements. This is so because only 7% of the population participates in the wellness programs, meaning that there is some communication challenges in the company. The benefit manager should work hard to improve the percentage of the employees participating in the wellness programs. This can be achieved by reviewing the existing wellness programs. Besides the current programs which include phone coaching, bi-annual event, health E-newsletter, and risk assessment through online questionnaire, there is still need to improve and increase ways of communication in order to maximize utilization of the wellness programs offered. One of the recommended ways to achieve this involves increased workshops and seminars, where all employees are encouraged to attend, in order to acquire more information and knowledge concerning their health. Another and most importantly is to incorporate the employees into the decision and policy making processes. This way, the employees would be offered with an opportunity to contribute on the best wellness programs which they think would improve their participation in the wellness programs. References: Rosen, L. (2004). HR networking: work-life benefits. Chicago, Ill.: CCH. Retrieved from: http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=cjJ9IUS1Ci4C&pg=PA6&dq=HR+networking:+work-life+benefits&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JV5FT_mpBcXb8gO9h6HiBA&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=HR%20networking%3A%20work-life%20benefits&f=false Teresa L. Thompson. (2003). Handbook of health communication. NJ, Mahwah: Routledge. Retrieved from: http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=ygcDB4CcP8IC&pg=PA258&dq=Teresa+L.+Thompson.+%282003%29.+Handbook+of+health+communication.+NJ,+Mahwah:+Routledge&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pVtFT9GkG8u18QO9sNTRDQ&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Teresa%20L.%20Thompson.%20%282003%29.%20Handbook%20of%20health%20communication.%20NJ%2C%20Mahwah%3A%20Routledge&f=false The healthcare intelligence network, (2006).Workplace wellness case studies: tactics to promote health and reduce risk. Manasquan: Healthcare Intelligence Net. retrieved from: http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=2NjFcKLmMJ4C&pg=PP1&dq=The+healthcare+intelligence+network,+%282006%29.Workplace+wellness+case+studies:+tactics+to+promote+%09health+and+reduce+risk.+Manasquan:+Healthcare+Intelligence+Net&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NVtFT-myIdDa8QPF0tXCBA&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false Read More