|
Advertising
Customer Service
• Register
|
MORE FROM NJBIZ
PEOPLE WHO READ THIS...
Also read these stories:
 Related Articles
This Week's Most Read Articles
Most Recent Articles
|
|||||||||
By Beth Fitzgerald“Healthy At Work?” a nationwide survey by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workplace Development, found small businesses are less likely to provide wellness programs, and these programs are more likely to be available to higher-paid and better-educated workers.
“As policymakers in Washington think about what kinds of mandates and expectations should be attached to health reform, employees are telling us that they like the idea of having wellness programs available to them at work, and think they are effective,” said Carl Van Horn, director of the Heldrich Center.
These programs “seem to work as a way to increase productivity and lower absenteeism, which is very important to employers,” Van Horn said.
Small business with fewer than 250 workers are less likely to provide wellness programs, Van Horn said, adding that small businesses also are less likely to offer health care coverage.
Van Horn said encouraging employers to continue providing coverage to workers appears to be part of the Barack Obama administration’s health care reform agenda, so there will continue to be a role for workplace wellness.
“Preventive care is an important part of the system, and it’s really taking place primarily in the workplace right now.”
About 4 in 10 working Americans have an employer-provided wellness program, ranging from classes in nutrition, to a newsletter, to a fitness center, the study found. Nearly one-third of those who have access to a wellness program say it has a major impact on the health of people in their workplace.
The national telephone survey was conducted March 19 to 29 among 583 adults working full- or part-time.
Rick Weiss is chief executive of Viocare, a Princeton company working with the Food and Drug Administration on a pilot program for at-work wellness that’s tailored to the individual’s needs. Weiss said it’s especially valuable to combine health education with personal coaching.
“When you have a coach you report back to, it’s an almost contractual relationship, and you feel more obligated” to follow through on your wellness goals, Weiss said.
