Businesses are Paying for Healthy Lifestyle Changes: Recently the New England Journal of Medicine tracked a new trend in business policy. It seems many companies are experimenting in rewarding employees for positive heath and lifestyle choices.

General Electric provided a group of employees with up to $750 in bonuses to stop smoking. About 10% of those who made it through the program remained smoke-free after 18 months compared to the national average of 3% for those who attempt to stop smoking on their own. Experts say the employee incentives are cost effective because the average annual expense related to a smoking employee is over $3,000 in work absenteeism, health care bills and lost productivity.

Why bring this up on a site dedicated to issues related to diabetes? The above is simply a prominent example of what businesses are doing to engage their employees in the arena of positive health choices. Some businesses will opt to provide a health club perk to employees with strong encouragement to use the membership. Others may provide a bonus based on the total number of days the employee registers to use a health club facility.

Businesses are discovering that the return on their health investment in members of their staff is profound. Employees are healthier and often more productive when physical exercise and positive health choices are encouraged by their employer. Employees appreciate these opportunities to be paid for making choices they already know they would be wise.

Dr. Ron Loeppke spoke about a recent Health and Productivity Forum, “U.S. employers today are significantly underestimating the overall costs associated with poor employee health, while also failing to fully assess the diseases and health conditions that drive these costs. We want to help employers understand that one of the best ways to lower costs is to provide programs that encourage health and wellness.”

Some large companies have gone so far as to provide an onsite medical facility available to employees.

This innovative approach to employee health may best be described as preventative medicine. Its implementation could have a positive role in leveraging assistance on the job for those who have diabetes. Secondarily, it may assist in lifestyle information that could impact personal choices and perhaps change course for those who may be on the road to Type 2 diabetes.

The idea of incentives really plays to the notion that people will respond to a motivation based on reward. If there is a tangible benefit from involvement individuals may participate purely out of selfishness. Whatever the motivation businesses are finding that there may be enough who will permanently change habits that the investment may be well worth funding.

The next step is often peer pressure where healthy staff members begin to exert positive pressure on other employees to explore the benefits associated with a healthy lifestyle. This can, to some degree, be a self-perpetuating scenario.

In the case of diabetes there can be a lack of motivation if only because depression seems to accompany this disease. Having a motivation that is outside of oneself may provide the drive to make changes.

I think it’s possible that businesses are seeing that the workplace has often unintentionally encouraged a sedentary lifestyle. Employees often sit at desks and manage work by phone or on computers without the need for physical exertion. Knowing this environment may not be conducive to good health the role of providing creative ways to encourage activity has become a means of employee responsibility for many businesses.