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There are alternatives to cutting employee benefits

RP news wires, Noria Corporation

We're mired in a sluggish economy and employers everywhere are casting about for ways to control costs and cut expenses. If you're like many of them, you may be eyeing employee benefits right now. And no wonder: Soaring monthly premiums make health insurance a fat and tempting target. But, radical as the notion may seem, Tom Gilliam, Ph.D., says you'd do better to lay down the cost-cutting ax and pick up the checkbook. Rather than chopping away at your employees' precious benefits, consider spending a little money on helping them get fit and healthy.

 

"At first glance, it may seem counterintuitive, but when you think long-term, it makes perfect sense," says Gilliam, co-author (along with Jane Neill, R.D., L.D.) of Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy.: The Simple Truth About Achieving & Maintaining a Healthy Body Weight (Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy., LLC, 2008, ISBN-13: 978-0-9762703-5-5, ISBN-10: 0-9762703-5-8, $19.95). "First of all, cutting benefits is demoralizing; it does neither your employees nor your company any favors. The last thing you want when you're trying to stay afloat in a tough economy is a team of disgruntled employees. Now, more than ever, employees need to be loyal, focused, and at the top of their game.

 

"But the main reason to invest in your employees' health is that your organization will benefit financially over the long haul," he adds. "Just look around your workplace. Employees are getting heavier and heavier — in fact, it's believed that some 66 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese — which means they're getting more expensive and less productive. Get proactive about helping them achieve healthy body weights and you will save money down the road."

 

Gilliam's own “Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy.” body weight management program helps companies do precisely that. This two-year program teaches employees and their families the right way to achieve and maintain healthy body weights. (Why families? Because obese and overweight dependents cost employers money, too.) Basically, MILILH helps participants succeed by promoting healthy lifestyle changes like making sound nutritional choices and getting regular exercise.

 

So, why focus on body weight and not on, say, preventing expensive illnesses like diabetes or heart disease? Because, says Gilliam, being overweight is almost always a root cause of other chronic health issues and injuries. Attack the problem at its source by helping employees get fit and healthy and you automatically prevent many, many other maladies that stem from obesity.

 

"If there is a 'magic bullet' for overall health, it's achieving a healthy body weight," he notes. "It may help prevent and treat everything from diabetes to heart disease to cancer to arthritis to depression to costly workers' compensation injuries. Companies are getting the message that taking a holistic approach to employee health is more efficient than buying 'wellness' and 'disease management' services separately. They're realizing that integrating these programs into a single, lifestyle-oriented approach saves money in the administrative arena and ultimately lowers health care costs as people get healthier and stay that way. It's a definite trend — and a reputable long-term program that teaches employees how to achieve healthy body weights is the best way to go."

 

Wondering how encouraging your employees to achieve and maintain healthy body weights pays off? Gilliam offers the following insights:

 

· Obese employees have higher medical costs. "An article in the December 2007 issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (JOEM) reported that 'medical spending attributable to adult overweight and obesity totals an estimated $93 billion per year,'"1 says Gilliam. "It goes on to point out that morbid obesity, which means having a BMI of 40 or higher, is on the rise — which is truly a sobering thought for the employers who must foot the health insurance bills."

 

Further information from the same article: When compared with those of healthy weight (BMI between 18.5 and 25), health care costs are 25 percent higher for those with a BMI of 30 to 35, 50 percent higher for those with a BMI of 35 to 40, and 100 percent higher for those with a BMI greater than 40.

 

"Add these statistics to the data published in several research journals in 2005 showing that the obese worker costs a company an extra $1,432 each year in healthcare costs and you realize what an expensive problem this truly is," says Gilliam. "Factor in the rising costs of health insurance and the rising number of obese Americans and you realize it's only going to get more expensive."

 

· Obese employees get hurt more frequently and rack up higher workers' comp costs. "A recent study from Duke University discovered a clear relationship between obesity and a higher number of workers' compensation claims," says Gilliam. “It showed that morbidly obese workers were injured twice as often as their healthy body weight counterparts. They had some 13 times as many lost workdays. Finally, their average workers' comp claim was $51,091 compared to $7,503 for employees at healthy weights.2

 

"You simply can't argue with statistics like this," he notes. "Basically, they show that obese employees are ticking time bombs. By helping them achieve healthy body weights today, employers can prevent almost certain, highly expensive injuries tomorrow."

 

· Obese employees are absent more often. "It stands to reason that people who are sick more often are also out of work more often," says Gilliam. "And obviously, absenteeism is expensive for companies. The JOEM article I cited earlier estimates the national aggregate costs of absenteeism associated with excess weight to be $4.3 billion annually in terms of 2004 dollars. It goes on to state that this number is thought to be more than 9 percent of the total nationwide cost of absenteeism. And here's another point to consider: Obese employees often have obese children, who have their own health problems. And when those kids are home from school sick, who stays home with them? That's right, a parent. So obesity in your employees' children can increase absenteeism as well."

 

· Even when they're actually at work, obese employees are less productive. OK, here's another statistic from JOEM, this time from an article in the January 2008 issue. A study of 341 manufacturing employees found that moderately or extremely obese workers (BMI greater than or equal to 35) "experienced a 4.2 percent health-related loss in productivity, 1.18 percent more than all other employees, which equates to an additional $506 annually in lost productivity per worker."3

 

"Presenteeism, which essentially means coming to work when you're not feeling well enough to do so, is an expensive problem for companies with obese employees," says Gilliam. "When you add the $506 figure to another estimate from the same JOEM article — namely, that the typical obese employee has an absenteeism cost of $433 more than his or her healthy body weight coworker — you get $939. That means obese employees cost a company nearly $1,000 a year more in terms of lost workdays and lost productivity than those who have normal body weights."

 

· Employees are more likely to be loyal to companies that care about them. Right now, more than ever, you want your employees to stick around. They understand the customer better than new hires, have more institutional memory, and don't have to be trained. Even more important, you want them to be engaged, committed, and on-task. Ensuring that they actually want to be there can give you the advantage you need to survive — maybe even thrive — in this tough economy. And let's face it: How many people (perhaps yourself included) wouldn't like to lose a few pounds?

 

"When you help your employees get fit and healthy, you're providing more than a paycheck," notes Gilliam. "You're providing the impetus they need to change their lives for the better. You're pushing them toward self-mastery and personal fulfillment. Ultimately, they will become better, happier, higher-performing employees and will be grateful that their employer was able to help them in such a positive way."

 

In the end, says Gilliam, making the decision to help your employees manage their body weights and stay healthy (even if it means losing weight) is not merely a matter of finances but of company culture — which is, itself, a matter of finances.

 

"We have entered an economic era that will separate the strong, healthy, vibrant companies from the weaker ones made up of people who are there only for the paycheck," he notes. "The extent to which you integrate yourself into your employees' overall life, and create the kind of work experience that inspires and challenges them, will determine how well you'll be able to compete in a tough marketplace. Helping them get healthier and happier is a great way to start."

 

1.      Cawley, John, John A. Rizzo, and Kara Haas. "Occupation-Specific Absenteeism Costs Associated With Obesity and Morbid Obesity." J Occup Environ Med. 2007; 49:1317-1324.

2.      Ostbye, Truls, John M. Dement, and Katrina M. Krause. "Obesity and Workers' Compensation: Results from the Duke Health and Safety Surveillance System." Arch Intern Med. 2007; 167: 766-773.

3.      Gates, Donna, Paul Succop, Bonnie J. Brehm, Gordon L. Gillespie, and Benjamin D. Sommers. "Obesity and Presenteeism: The Impact of Body Mass Index on Workplace Productivity." J Occup Environ Med. 2008; 50: 39-45.

 

About the authors

Thomas B. Gilliam, Ph.D., is the founder and president of T. Gilliam & Associates, coauthor of the book Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy.: The Simple Truth About Achieving & Maintaining a Healthy Body Weight, creator of the Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy. wellness program, designed to teach workers how to achieve a healthy body weight, creator of moveitloseitlivehealthy.com, and founder and owner of Industrial Physical Capability Services, Inc. (IPCS).

 

Since 1982, Dr. Gilliam has designed and managed many corporate fitness centers ranging from 500 square feet to 34,000 square feet. He has established a variety of wellness programs to deal with such health issues as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, physical inactivity, stress, osteoporosis, low back pain, and many more.

 

In addition, Dr. Gilliam is a pioneer and acknowledged expert in the field of dynamic strength testing for industry based on the sports medicine model. Since 1982, he has provided isokinetic physical capability assessments for Fortune 1000 companies through his company Industrial Physical Capability Services, Inc. (IPCS) (www.ipcs-inc.com). Dr. Gilliam's programs have dramatically reduced workers' compensation costs and decreased injury incidence and severity rates for major industrial clients. In addition, Dr. Gilliam has been instrumental in identifying and presenting to industry the higher risk for injury and disease caused by obesity in the workplace.

 

Dr. Gilliam is the creator of the Heart "E" Heart program, which is a healthy lifestyle program for children and their families. He was the principal investigator in a National Institutes of Health research study investigating the impact of physical activity and nutritional habits on heart disease risk in young children. Conducted in the late 1970s, this research resulted in numerous scholarly publications and television and radio interviews throughout the world, including NBC's Today Show and NBC's Nightly News with its science editor, Robert Basel.

 

In 1973, Dr. Gilliam earned a doctorate degree in exercise physiology with a minor in graduate statistics and research design from Michigan State University. From 1974 to 1982, Dr. Gilliam was a tenured faculty member at the University of Michigan. Before resigning from his tenured faculty position, he was involved with numerous funded research projects (i.e., N.I.H., Kellogg Foundation, State of Michigan, and others) that resulted in twenty-nine refereed scholarly publications.   

 

Jane C. Neill, R.D., L.D., is the 2004 recipient of the Nutritionist of the Year Award for the State of Alabama Public Health. She is an active member of the American Dietetic Association and currently employed by the Alabama Department of Public Health, where she works with the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) program as a WIC coordinator and a licensed dietitian. She has worked in the WIC program for over ten years, providing daily nutrition counseling for women, infants, and children.

 

While on the staff as a registered dietitian at the University of Michigan Health System in the late 1970s, Jane was instrumental in working with Dr. Gilliam as an investigator on the National Institutes of Health research study to investigate the impact of physical activity and nutritional habits on heart disease risk in children ages six to eight years.

 

Ms. Neill is a member of the team that developed and wrote the Heart "E" Heart program for children and their families.

 

She received her bachelor's of science degree from the University of Alabama in 1977 in food, nutrition, and institutional management. Ms. Neill has been working as a registered dietitian for over twenty-seven years.

 

About the book

Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy.: The Simple Truth About Achieving & Maintaining a Healthy Body Weight (Move It. Lose It. Live Healthy., LLC, 2008, ISBN-13: 978-0-9762703-5-5, ISBN-10: 0-9762703-5-8, $19.95) is available in bookstores nationwide and through all major online booksellers. For more information, visit moveitloseitlivehealthy.com.

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