Empowering Employees
Company wellness programs are nothing new, but at Pearson Packaging, a 100-employee manufacturer in Spokane, wellness has become the culture.
Led by human resources director Machelle Johnson, the company has developed a series of points programs whereby the more employees take care of themselves, the less they pay in health care premiums.
About 75 percent participate.
The Lean for Life program she developed seven years ago includes annual spring biometric, cholesterol and body-mass index screenings, a smoking cessation program and plenty of opportunity to work some running into a fitness routine.
“Anytime employees participate in a race, they get 50 points,” Johnson explains.
She says several workers in the production center wear pedometers to track their walking. Others have entered races or joined gyms. Johnson receives attendance logs from the YMCA and OZ Fitness, partners in the program. Every time an employee checks in at either facility, he or she earns four points. Quit smoking? That’s 100 points.
What do points get them? Up to $280 off their annual health care premiums. It might not sound like a large savings, but Johnson says for an employee with a family, every little bit helps.
Most participating employees started because they could cut their health care costs, but after a while, it became more about their health. One employee, who used to smoke and had chronic health problems, quit smoking through the program, swims daily and runs a triathlon every few months.
“He was out there smoking all the time,” Johnson adds. She recalls his wife coming up to her one day and saying, “You’ve totally changed his life.”
Another benefit is fewer accidents. In the seven years since launching Lean for Life, the company’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration incident rating dropped from 10.14 to below 3.
“We went 1,300 days without a time-loss injury,” “Johnson notes. “That’s almost three years without one person getting hurt.”
All this activity hasn’t reduced costs so much as keeping them from rising, Johnson says. Since the company is self-insured, the programs bring stability to the bottom line.
RUNNERS-UP>>>
Karen Vogel, Director, human resources, WatchGuard Technologies Inc.
Aware of the challenge of ongoing engagement in established wellness programs, Karen Vogel, director of human resources at WatchGuard, reenergized its program by rewarding employees for coming up with new ideas and by offering choice. Vogel’s human resources team plans monthly wellness seminars on topics such as ergonomics and debt management, and hosts events such as Holiday Holdout, Relaxation Remedies and Veggie Challenge. The choices have enticed employees to try a lifestyle change for the better—yielding reduced annual health insurance premiums for the company and the gratitude of healthier employees.
Barbara Magusin, Senior vice president, human resources, Premera Blue Cross
Like the offense of a football team reading the defense, the human resources department at Premera set up group, rather than individual, goals. Orchestrated by Barbara Magusin, the Premera Health Improvement Award helped employees get healthy and stay healthy. In the first year, employees lost 2.5 tons of body weight. Their heart disease risk decreased from 12.6 percent to 9.8 percent and, as a result, their health care costs dropped by $288 a year, a 9 percent decline. Premera has launched a new company called Vivacity that will evangelize the promise of the program for other companies.
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