The phenomenal increases in health care costs have become a central issue of concern to the business community. The centrality of concern for employee’s health is logical. According to Warner (2000), “three interrelated premises underlie the perception that economic concerns are of preeminent importance, that is, the impact on the bottom line, the rising health care costs and evidence linking poor health behaviors and rising costs of disease incidence”. As Young (2006) and Armstrong (2007) contend “the expansion of the employee’s benefits, the aging of the workforce and growth in the retiree population have combined to exacerbate health cost inflation in the business community”. It follows then that the company spending less on health care costs increases their bottom line.
It has been stated that an information infrastructure is needed to communicate health care information, track participant progress, program evaluations and training schedules. The core of our disease prevention and health promotion program will therefore be to create more awareness of the benefits of WWP among the top employers in the entire nation. This will be structured around the tenets of developing a health and productivity management model that will directly relate the company’s investment in WWP to its overall productivity and profitability (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007).
The program will be structured around a 3-level design of:
- Creating awareness of the benefits of WWP programs and services provision,
- Addressing lifestyle and behavior changes and
- Promotion of activities aimed at changing behavior and knowledge through follow up among the top employers in the entire nation.
Specifically, the program will assess employee health behavior with a questionnaire and physical assessment of exercise habits and body fat measurements, prior to offering help to control high-risk behaviors in areas such as weight control, nutrition, and stress management. The program will also offer classes, self-study and individual support. Further to this, the differences in the number and type of health promotion programs and services offered and the employer costs for the services offered within the programs will be reported.
Key Words: WWP (Work Site Wellness Programs) and productivity management model.
I have made extensive application of my pre – writing strategies to narrow and define my topic and overcome “Writers’ Block”. These include brainstorming, mind mapping and free writing. In the brain storming stage, I have listed the information that I have generated within my topic and put down all possible terms that have emerged in the course of this pre – writing strategy. In mind mapping, I have explored the relationships between my ideas while at the same time focusing on the main subject. I have then proceeded to free writing strategy where I have generated a lot of information that are relevant to the topic by writing non-stop.
References
- Armstrong, A., (2007). Conceptualizing how job involvement and Organizational commitment affect turnover and absenteeism. Academic Management journal, (2), 112. Colombia University Press: Colombia.
- Kaiser Family Foundation. (2007). Trends in Health Care Costs and Spending.
- Warner, K. E (2000). Wellness at the work place. Journal of environmental and organizational health. Vol. 11:171-198.
- Young, B (2006) A user’s guide to the mental, physical and spiritual well-being scale. Monash University: Melbourne.