7 ms·

Do Workplace Wellness Programs Work? Usually Not

41 points by brandonb 12y ago

dreamweapon 12y ago
Just give me decent office space, flextime, and a sensible allowance for vacation, (self-directed) training and sabbaticals -- and, if you don't mind, a solid health insurance that doesn't deduct from my salary base in order to cover beyond the bare minimum -- please. That's all I need for "wellness."
- anon4 12y ago
  Ahahah, you can also ask for a pony and a ticket to Mars.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    I have everything OP asked for (I work from home, sane work-life balance, unlimited vacation), except I pay ~$500/month for health insurance on my own (I can get a better quality plan on my own, two people both in their 30s; thanks ACA!). I took my job because it cut my commute time from 40-60 hours a month to 0. What OP is asking for isn't crazy, most companies just don't have the management structure (or good management) to provide it. You can find these companies, just plan on spending time looking (took me a year, but I was employed during that time).
  - enjo 12y ago
    At Gridium we provide literally everything on the list.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- shouldbeworking 12y ago
  Quit giving staff delicious unhealthy food.
  - dreamweapon 12y ago
    Yeah. It's amazing how many companies with "wellness" polices also happen to have the most cafeterias and kitchens (when they have them).
    - click170 12y ago
      Can we agree that it's not the having of a kitchen or cafeteria, but what they stock it with that is the problem? I would relish a kitchen or cafeteria stocked with delicious and wholesome food.
      - deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  - mahyarm 12y ago
    Oh god this is so true.
acgourley 12y ago
What about employee happiness, productivity and stress levels?
- VLM 12y ago
  Anecdotally my coworkers and I find it hyper creepy and don't participate. Very few people do. I don't actually know anybody who does, despite extremely heavy promotion such as nearly weekly spam and even physical paper spam sent to our homes. I'm one of the few people I work with who would auto-qualify because I exercise during my lunch hour, sorta reasonably healthy, great diet, but even I won't sign up. A program like this is almost the definition of a violation of work-life balance. Way too creepy, big brother is monitoring you. The last thing I want is an awkward metric on my annual review to verify my prostate is getting a regular workout and what my employer can do to help out and hows my stamina now and whatever other totally inappropriate freakishness they think up. The whole concept is just offensive. Just too many crossed boundaries. I find the sex analogy to be highly relevant. A happy employee is a productive employee so we should all be required to document and track our sexual activity with our boss and have a performance improvement plan as part of our reviews to make sure we're getting some. Next we can add religion! Ugh. They offer a wellness clinic in the lunch room about twice a year, free screenings and free vaccinations. Many people participate, including myself, the primary reason this isn't creepy is this doesn't involve my boss or HR or payroll getting involved, no big brother garbage. At least not in public (maybe there is a secret file on me for each flu vaccination I've gotten, donno).
  - adrr 12y ago
    Here's the dilemma. How do employers control medical expenses? And then as an employee, why don't i get incentives for having healthy blood pressure levels, perfect cholesterol levels, a normal BMI? Our society is increasing becoming obese and our health care spending is spiring out of control. Something has to give. We have a really weird system where employers pay for our healthcare which is why see these wellness programs which people deem creepy.
    - 12y ago
buckbova 12y ago
> Medium-to-large employers spent an average of $521 per employee on wellness programs last year, double the amount they spent five years ago . . . The question from me wouldn't be whether or not they work, but are they worth the time, money and effort that is put into these programs?
spindritf 12y ago
Previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260
clairity 12y ago
this article seems to confirm my pet theory that most programs promoting "wellness" are rarely effective because it doesn't involve true intrinsic motivation (it talks about extrinsic carrots and sticks). you need to want to do something that has a side effect of wellness. for example, i started playing basketball again after i could find no other activity that would keep me at a healthy weight. i keep playing because i'm competitive, both with myself and with others. this is similar to how viral loops work - get people active by allowing them to 'level up' and feel good about themselves.
cc438 12y ago
I've always been told that wellness programs existed to obtain discounts from the insurance providers, akin to "honor roll" discounts with car insurance. As long as you have the bare minimum to qualify, you get a nice chunk of $$$ chopped off your rate. I get that plenty of rate modifiers have strong links to driving safety like age and marriage status. However, in my limited opinion, there's no way "honor roll" has anything but the weakest link to safe driving as the barrier to achievement varies drastically on a school-to-school basis. Insurance companies are data driven but data (especially healthcare data) lags so long that I wouldn't be surprised if discounts for running a wellness program were founded purely in speculation. This article seems to back that assumption with hard proof as well.
- slapshot 12y ago
  Large employers are generally self-funded, meaning that they pay their healthcare claims dollar-for-dollar. Blue Cross (or whomever) serves as a claims administrator and takes a premium for the service, but may not provide any actual "insurance" with respect to the company (some have maximum per-year and maximum per-employee caps to the company but they aren't usually triggered by the sorts of things that wellness programs address). Big companies hope that wellness programs really will decrease healthcare spend and increase morale --- chronic conditions like diabetes and smoking do have a disproportionate impact on the healthcare bottom line. That said, once-off specialty conditions (cancer, heart surgery, etc.) have an even bigger impact and aren't addressed by this.
  - YokoZar 12y ago
    The big items are also probabilistic events likely related to a lot of underlying health circumstances. If cancer or heart surgery can be merely delayed a year through the wellness program, then that may just be the year the employee retires or switches jobs and goes onto a different health insurer. These things are so incredibly expensive that even a small shift in them could be worth a considerable amount of dollars per worker. And that's not even considering productivity benefits (which are in turn so hard to quantify we'll almost always be talking about gut feelings on this issue.)
tfederman 12y ago
I wonder if the PepsiCo Healthy Living program directed people to consume fewer PepsiCo products. It seems awkward for them to either address or ignore.
- raisedbyninjas 12y ago
  Not directly. It promotes exercise, quitting smoking, etc. The extent of their healthy product endeavor is reducing salt, sugar, trans fats, pushing naked juice, bottled water, an flavored water products.

41 points by brandonb 12y ago

Just give me decent office space, flextime, and a sensible allowance for vacation, (self-directed) training and sabbaticals -- and, if you don't mind, a solid health insurance that doesn't deduct from my salary base in order to cover beyond the bare minimum -- please. That's all I need for "wellness."

anon4 12y ago
Ahahah, you can also ask for a pony and a ticket to Mars.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  I have everything OP asked for (I work from home, sane work-life balance, unlimited vacation), except I pay ~$500/month for health insurance on my own (I can get a better quality plan on my own, two people both in their 30s; thanks ACA!). I took my job because it cut my commute time from 40-60 hours a month to 0. What OP is asking for isn't crazy, most companies just don't have the management structure (or good management) to provide it. You can find these companies, just plan on spending time looking (took me a year, but I was employed during that time).
- enjo 12y ago
  At Gridium we provide literally everything on the list.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
shouldbeworking 12y ago
Quit giving staff delicious unhealthy food.
- dreamweapon 12y ago
  Yeah. It's amazing how many companies with "wellness" polices also happen to have the most cafeterias and kitchens (when they have them).
  - click170 12y ago
    Can we agree that it's not the having of a kitchen or cafeteria, but what they stock it with that is the problem? I would relish a kitchen or cafeteria stocked with delicious and wholesome food.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
- mahyarm 12y ago
  Oh god this is so true.

acgourley 12y ago

What about employee happiness, productivity and stress levels?

VLM 12y ago
Anecdotally my coworkers and I find it hyper creepy and don't participate. Very few people do. I don't actually know anybody who does, despite extremely heavy promotion such as nearly weekly spam and even physical paper spam sent to our homes. I'm one of the few people I work with who would auto-qualify because I exercise during my lunch hour, sorta reasonably healthy, great diet, but even I won't sign up. A program like this is almost the definition of a violation of work-life balance. Way too creepy, big brother is monitoring you. The last thing I want is an awkward metric on my annual review to verify my prostate is getting a regular workout and what my employer can do to help out and hows my stamina now and whatever other totally inappropriate freakishness they think up. The whole concept is just offensive. Just too many crossed boundaries. I find the sex analogy to be highly relevant. A happy employee is a productive employee so we should all be required to document and track our sexual activity with our boss and have a performance improvement plan as part of our reviews to make sure we're getting some. Next we can add religion! Ugh. They offer a wellness clinic in the lunch room about twice a year, free screenings and free vaccinations. Many people participate, including myself, the primary reason this isn't creepy is this doesn't involve my boss or HR or payroll getting involved, no big brother garbage. At least not in public (maybe there is a secret file on me for each flu vaccination I've gotten, donno).
- adrr 12y ago
  Here's the dilemma. How do employers control medical expenses? And then as an employee, why don't i get incentives for having healthy blood pressure levels, perfect cholesterol levels, a normal BMI? Our society is increasing becoming obese and our health care spending is spiring out of control. Something has to give. We have a really weird system where employers pay for our healthcare which is why see these wellness programs which people deem creepy.
  - 12y ago

buckbova 12y ago

> Medium-to-large employers spent an average of $521 per employee on wellness programs last year, double the amount they spent five years ago . . . The question from me wouldn't be whether or not they work, but are they worth the time, money and effort that is put into these programs?

spindritf 12y ago

Previously https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7410260

clairity 12y ago

this article seems to confirm my pet theory that most programs promoting "wellness" are rarely effective because it doesn't involve true intrinsic motivation (it talks about extrinsic carrots and sticks). you need to want to do something that has a side effect of wellness. for example, i started playing basketball again after i could find no other activity that would keep me at a healthy weight. i keep playing because i'm competitive, both with myself and with others. this is similar to how viral loops work - get people active by allowing them to 'level up' and feel good about themselves.

cc438 12y ago

I've always been told that wellness programs existed to obtain discounts from the insurance providers, akin to "honor roll" discounts with car insurance. As long as you have the bare minimum to qualify, you get a nice chunk of $$$ chopped off your rate. I get that plenty of rate modifiers have strong links to driving safety like age and marriage status. However, in my limited opinion, there's no way "honor roll" has anything but the weakest link to safe driving as the barrier to achievement varies drastically on a school-to-school basis. Insurance companies are data driven but data (especially healthcare data) lags so long that I wouldn't be surprised if discounts for running a wellness program were founded purely in speculation. This article seems to back that assumption with hard proof as well.

slapshot 12y ago
Large employers are generally self-funded, meaning that they pay their healthcare claims dollar-for-dollar. Blue Cross (or whomever) serves as a claims administrator and takes a premium for the service, but may not provide any actual "insurance" with respect to the company (some have maximum per-year and maximum per-employee caps to the company but they aren't usually triggered by the sorts of things that wellness programs address). Big companies hope that wellness programs really will decrease healthcare spend and increase morale --- chronic conditions like diabetes and smoking do have a disproportionate impact on the healthcare bottom line. That said, once-off specialty conditions (cancer, heart surgery, etc.) have an even bigger impact and aren't addressed by this.
- YokoZar 12y ago
  The big items are also probabilistic events likely related to a lot of underlying health circumstances. If cancer or heart surgery can be merely delayed a year through the wellness program, then that may just be the year the employee retires or switches jobs and goes onto a different health insurer. These things are so incredibly expensive that even a small shift in them could be worth a considerable amount of dollars per worker. And that's not even considering productivity benefits (which are in turn so hard to quantify we'll almost always be talking about gut feelings on this issue.)

tfederman 12y ago

I wonder if the PepsiCo Healthy Living program directed people to consume fewer PepsiCo products. It seems awkward for them to either address or ignore.

raisedbyninjas 12y ago
Not directly. It promotes exercise, quitting smoking, etc. The extent of their healthy product endeavor is reducing salt, sugar, trans fats, pushing naked juice, bottled water, an flavored water products.