Corporate wellness is a benefit that has been steadily growing over the past several years (as reported recently by ALM Intelligence), though its origins reach back further. Starting out decades ago with an emphasis on physical fitness, employers have often strived to find a balance between programs offered and return on investment to justify their continued cost. While there was some moralistic imperative to continue to offer opportunities for workforces to remain healthy, these initiatives were limited by how much an employer would be willing to sacrifice financially, especially if measuring returns proved difficult to do, which it often did.
Fast-forward to today, where a turbulent economy and rising healthcare costs are creating an atmosphere of imperative among corporate leadership to mitigate the health costs of their workforces, and you will find that wellness is coming to the forefront as a viable alternative. While return on investment is still an important factor for wellness programs, it remains elusive in quantification as it is difficult to ascertain exactly what impacts the programs are having on employees and what impacts are occurring naturally through societal and economic changes that employers have no control over. Enter the concept of "value on investment" (VOI).
VOI is a term that is beginning to overshadow ROI as the standard for measurement of wellness program success. Rather than examining strictly medical costs offsets through providing wellness services such as smoking cessation programs, nutritional education, and fitness assessments, employers are now focusing on other factors that affect their bottom dollar.
Examples of VOI include decreasing absenteeism, reducing presenteeism, (employees going to work while ill, thus reducing individual productivity) and improving workplace safety, among others. The thought process behind VOI is to look at overall productivity of a given workforce, and not just bottom line medical costs. While still difficult to quantify, it is another arrow in the quiver to justify to the C-suite the need to maintain a strong wellness program.
Focusing on VOI over ROI is a good start, but employers pursuing this change will soon realize that physical fitness alone is not enough to make a strong wellness program. Workforces today are increasingly selective about who they work for (especially millennials), and a big factor that guides their decisions is the perception of how much their employers care for their overall wellbeing.
Consequently, physical fitness by itself does not measure up for most prospective employees. Rather, there is a growing desire to see employers offer holistic wellbeing services that, while still retaining traditional physical fitness approaches, also include mental and financial services to both manage stress at workplaces and improve financial security.
If that seems like a lot to offer in a wellness program, it's probably because it is (and the factors mentioned only scratch the surface). But it's also indicative of the changing tide in the perpetual war for talent and how crucial it is becoming to a company's workforce strategy's success. In fact, wellness is now important enough to warrant inclusion in overall corporate strategy in many cases.
Starting out as a smattering of programs available to a few, wellness has become a comprehensive benefit offering for all that is included in a company's overall strategic direction, never to be an afterthought again.
Matthew Merker is the Senior Analyst, Lead for Benefits Consulting Research for ALM Intelligence.
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