• According to Employer Health Promotion Survey conducted by Hewitt Associates, 76% of the 618 employers surveyed have turned to health promotion as a means of cost containment, and 89% indicated they would increase their involvement over the next five years
• General Electric reduced health care costs for members of its fitness program by 38% in an 18 month period, while non-members health care costs rose 21%
• The Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company of New Jersey found that workers who participate in their corporate fitness program have average medical claims that are 70% lower then workers who do not
• A Purdue University study demonstrated that executives who work out regularly are actually better decision makers. After testing the decision making capabilities of 80 people over a 9 month period of time, the fitness level of the exercisers had risen 22%, while their ability to make complex decisions had increased 70% over non-exercisers
• According to D.W. Edington, Ph.D., at the University of Michigan, “Wellness programs in general, and fitness programs in particular may be the only employee benefits which pay money back. When more people come to work, you don’t need to pay overtime or temporary help; when people stay at the job longer, training costs go down; lower health care claims cost you less if you’re self insured-and health care insurers as well as some companies are already beginning to create premiums based on fitness levels”

As health care premiums continue to rise, more and more companies are offering programs to target wellness in the workplace, with the reasoning that healthier, happier employees are more productive, take fewer sick days and cost less to insure. Nearly three-quarters of companies that provided health benefits last year also offered some sort of wellness program, up from 57 percent in 2009, according to an annual report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

How much do wellness programs really help a company’s bottom line?

For every dollar a business spends on wellness programs, it saves $3.27 in medical costs and $2.73 in abseentism costs, according to a recent study by three Harvard University researchers.