An article published in Science Daily recently proved music to our team’s ears as it spoke of the effectiveness of wellness programs, and how many dollars are lost to ineffective programs. Additionally, we came across a fun piece in The Huffington Post about hot to navigate busy workout spaces as newly invigorated resolutions are run, x-trained and stepped up in the gym.
Study Details
Firstly, In the largest study of its kind, researchers from the University of Michigan have looked into workplace wellness programs and their effectiveness. Ten modifiable health risks across seven industries were assessed using a colossal sample size of 223,500 participants.
Study Results
In short, the study results show that one out of every four dollars that employers spend on healthcare is for lifestyle-related ailments such as smoking, stress or obesity. The catch comes in that most large employers have wellness programs! So despite actively investing in their employee’s health, they still spend a quarter of their healthcare budget on treating preventable conditions.
Thus the question arises, how effective is the typical corporate wellness program, and how can it be made more-so? One of the main points made was that wellness programs can be very superficial, lessening their effectiveness as they don’t get to the crux of the problem.
What We Think
This study was music to our ears and we recommend reading the rest of it here. Our in-house physiotherapy clinics run monthly for our clients which means our ROI value is one of the highest around at 11 to 1. If you’re going to invest in a wellness program that works, something substantial and ongoing is far more likely to pay dividends when it comes to saved healthcare spend, particularly around lifestyle-related illnesses.
January Gym Fever Hits the UK
Lastly, it’s January and people’s New Year’s Resolution’s are firmly in play – as a result, your gym has never likely seemed busier. For this reason, Huffington Post has the below ideas for navigating your way through the running machines for the remainder of this month!
• Lunchtimes are quieter: If you can nip out of work at lunchtime to train, this can result in a much easier session with far less queuing! Mornings and evenings before and after work are commonly the busiest.
• Brave the cold: Get your vitamin D, wake up call and endorphins all in one hit and without a queue in sight by taking your workout outside this month.
• Try something new: Challenging your body with something new and a machine that doesn’t have a big queue in front of it can help your workout, and your January fitness goals.
• Cancel for January: Lots of big gym chains allow for memberships to be paused, so if you really can’t stand the extra people, knock it on the head for the month.