American supermarket Safeway has an important part to play in history, as it was one of the first organisations to instigate the idea of a corporate wellness programme. This is a special programme that is taken on by an employer in order to increase employee wellbeing and ensure that all members of an organisation are healthy and performing at their best. The aim of this is supposed to be to reduce healthcare costs overall.
The company was one of the first to base employee health premiums on how healthy the employees are (or area trying to be). This gives employees a financial stake in their own wellbeing, as they will then be motivated to save money by leading a more healthy lifestyle and thereby reducing their premiums.
As part of the health-reform debate, United States President, Barack Obama, cited Safeway as an example that all organisations should follow. There is some evidence emerging, however, that investing in corporate wellness programmes may not be of financial benefit to big businesses like this.
One such organisation is BJC Healthcare, which launched its wellness programme in the same year as Safeway’s groundbreaking one. Completing a healthcare assessment put employees onto a better quality of plan, and any smokers had to sign up to attend a smoking-cessation class.
The research looked at this health care plan and discovered that the number of hospitalisations did not change before or after the plan, indicating that it had no change in cost effect. They did also note, however, that those with specific health conditions that were being targeted by the company (such as diabetes and heart disease) had a decrease in hospital visits, following the implementation of the corporate wellness programmes.
This seems to indicate that whilst these healthcare programmes do not benefit the financial situation of the employer, overall, they do help to decrease certain types of health condition.
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